Award 
 

Zaffar Abbas Awarded for Supporting Press Freedom

December 2019

Zaffar Abbas, the editor of Pakistan’s leading English daily DAWN, has been recognized for his extraordinary and sustained achievements towards journalistic freedom. In recognition of his efforts, he has been awarded the 2019 Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award this year. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), New York, is of the view that he has made outstanding efforts in this regard. The. American journalist Lester Holt presented the award to Abbas, saying that he was a deserving recipient. The award, previously known as the Burton Benjamin Memorial Award, was renamed in 2017 to honour veteran journalist and former board member Gwen Ifill who died in 2016.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ, Abbas has been a vocal supporter of the safety of journalists even at a time when journalists and media in Pakistan were facing extraordinary pressure. He was appointed in 2015 as the chairman of Editors for Safety, a body of editors who work to provide protection to journalists facing threats.

“Zaffar Abbas is the embodiment of journalistic courage, which is why the board is so pleased to honour him with the Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award. Every day he fights to deliver facts to Dawn’s readers in the face of pressure, obstacles and blockades from the institutions in Pakistan that would much prefer to go about their business without scrutiny from the press or the public,” said Kathleen Carroll, chair of the CPJ board.

Abbas, who joined DAWN in 2006 and became its editor in 2010, started his journalistic career in 1981 as a junior reporter at The Star, a Karachi-based evening newspaper that is now defunct. The newspaper was a part of the Herald Group which also publishes Dawn. He then moved to monthly Herald (again a Herald Group publication) as an investigative journalist in 1988. In 1992 joined the BBC as its Pakistan correspondent

Lester Holt presenting the award to Zaffar Abbas
(From L to R): Patrícia Campos Mello, Maxence Melo Mubyazi, Zaffar Abbas, Lucía Pineda Ubau, Miguel Mora and Neha Dixit awarded CJP’s 2019 International Press Freedom Award.

Zaffar Abbas has faced violence and intimidation all through his career. In 1991, armed men attacked him and his brother at their house. A few years later, when he was working with the BBC, he and his colleagues were physically assaulted and the network’s Islamabad office was set on fire. In 2016, he and the reporter who published the news about relations between the civil and military leadership were interrogated for hours by Pakistan’s intelligence agencies but they refused to reveal their sources. DAWN’s circulation was disrupted in several cities on many occasions because of the same reason.

Abbas also covered the insurgency and civil war in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation, as well as the post-9/11 events and their impact on the region, which included the rise of religious extremism.

While addressing the award presentation ceremony, Abbas was of the opinion that journalism is more about unveiling the truth rather than surrendering in fear of its outcome. He also emphasised that there are no particular rights for journalists in Pakistan. Over the past couple of decades, he said, more than sixty journalists had been killed in the line of duty and so far only a handful of these cases had been properly investigated, reinforcing a chilling culture of impunity when it comes to crimes against journalists in Pakistan.

He thanked the CPJ and his significant co-travellers i.e. his wife, his daughter and particularly team DAWN, who stood with him through thick and thin. For him, the award added a meaningful voice to the cause of media freedom in the country. He said that even though there had been widespread disruption of DAWN’s distribution network in the name of national interest and patriotism and many attempts had been made to suppress free expression, the newspaper remained the most credible media voice in Pakistan.

Notable past recipients of the Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award include Alan Rusbridger, former editor-in-chief of The Guardian (2012), Kathy Gannon of The Associated Press (2015) and CNN's Christiane Amanpour (2016).

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