BEIRUT: Egyptian journalist Dina Abdel-Mooti Darwich on Friday became the first winner of a new EU-funded press freedom award commemorating slain Lebanese writer Samir Kassir. Darwich, 35, took the top prize of 15,000 euros for a January 10 article in the French-language Cairo weekly Al-Ahram Hebdo, describing police brutality against journalists during Egyptian parliamentary elections last year. The second prize of 10,000 euros went to Lebanese journalist Habib Battah, 33, for a June 18, 2005, article in the English-language Daily Star about corruption in Lebanese elections last year. Kassir, a prominent critic of Syria s three-decade-long military intervention in its smaller neighbor, was killed in a Beirut car bomb blast last year, one of a string of assassinations widely blamed on Damascus and its Lebanese allies. This prize is not just a reward, but is meant to back words against arms and barbarism, the head of the EU mission in Beirut, Patrick Renauld, said at the award ceremony which was attended by Kassir s widow, Gisele Khoury, who is herself a journalist. Renauld hailed the name and the life of Samir Kassir which we want to mark in the memory of the Arab world and Europe, as a symbol of the fight for freedoms. AFP
Egyptian wins new EU-funded press freedom award
