The Committee to Protect Journalists has named three journalists and a media lawyer as recipients of this year's Press Freedom Awards.
The press freedom organization says the four endured beatings, jail and intimidation for their work.
Reporter Galima Bukharbaeva of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting won the award for risking her life to cover the brutal Uzbek government crackdown on protesters in the city of Andijan last May. The committee says Ms. Bukharbaeva is now in exile in the United States and faces criminal prosecution in Uzbekistan for her reporting.
The New York-based group says Lacio Flavio Pinto, who publishes and edits the Brazilian bimonthly newspaper Jornal Pessoal, won for courageous reporting on drug trafficking, environmental devastation and corruption in Brazil's remote Amazon jungle.
Imprisoned Chinese journalist Shi Tao won the award for his essays on political reform. Mr. Shi's work as a freelance journalist and editor with a Chinese business newspaper, Dangdai Shang Bao, earned him a 10-year prison sentence for allegedly leaking state secrets, but drew attention to Internet censorship in China.
And Zimbabwe media lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa won for what the committee called her tireless defense of press freedoms in a highly restrictive media environment.
The committee will also honor the late ABC news anchor Peter Jennings with a lifetime achievement award.
