arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)

De jury had in de huidige context schrijft Mia Doornaert in De Standaard van 03.05.2003, "geen betere keuze kunnen maken." Amira Hass ging tien jaar geleden in Gaza wonen en verhuisde met de Palestijnse Autoriteit van Yasser Arafat naar Ramallah. Vanuit Palestijns gebied schrijft ze een column in de Israëlische krant Haaretz. "Haar column zindert van verontwaardiging over de wijze waarop haar land, Israël, Palestijnen onderdrukt, mishandelt en doodt. Ze schrijft geen sentiment. Ze schrijft op basis van harde feiten, ze beschrijft het leven, dag na dag, onder de bezetting." Hass is in de eerste plaats journaliste. Dat wil zeggen dat ze niet selectief is in haar waarneming. Ze durft ook de misbruiken en corruptie van de Palestijnse Autoriteit aan de kaak te stellen. Vaak komt ze dan ook in aanvaring met de autoriteiten van beide kampen.

Uit de UN Chronicle: "The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) awarded the 2003 Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize to Amira Hass, an Israeli journalist for Israel's daily newspaper Ha'aretz, for reporting on the trials and tribulations encountered by residents of the Palestinian territories. UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura said: "Amira Hass has been showing professional commitment and independence, as well as personal courage, over the past decade. If peace is to be established between Israelis and Palestinians, it will be thanks to people like Ms. Hass who are able to look at the facts and understand them." The $25,000 prize was awarded at the recommendation of an international jury and it will be officially presented to Ms. Hass on 3 May at a World Press Freedom Day ceremony in Kingston, Jamaica.

Born to survivors of the Holocaust in Jerusalem in 1956, Ms. Hass studied history and joined Ha'aretz as a staff editor in 1989. Her reporting on the occupied territories began in 1991. She moved to the Gaza Strip after the Israel-Palestine peace agreement of December 1993, and then relocated to Ramallah in the West Bank in 1997. Ms. Hass is currently the only Israeli journalist living in the Palestinian territories and has spent the last ten years reporting on Palestinian issues despite restrictions from both Israeli and Palestinian military authorities.

The UNESCO World Press Freedom Prize is named after Guillermo Cano, a Colombian journalist who was murdered in 1986 for criticizing the actions of powerful drug cartels in his country. Previous recipients are Geoffrey Nyarota of Zimbabwe (2002), imprisoned journalist U Win Tin of Myanmar (2001), Nizar Nayyouf of Syria (2000), Jesus Blancornelas of Mexico (1999), Christina Anyanwu of Nigeria (1998) and Gao Yu of China (1997)."
http://www.un.org/Pubs/chronicle/2003/webArticles/031003_worldpress.html