Laureate of the UNESCO / Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize 1998

The 1998 UNESCO / Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize was awarded by UNESCO Director-General Federico Mayor to the Nigerian journalist Christina Anyanwu who is the publisher and editor in chief of "The Sunday Magazine" (Lagos, Nigeria). According to the World Press Freedom Committee and Reporters Sans Frontieres which proposed her for the prize, she is being held in detention in a prison in the north-east of Nigeria in particularly difficult conditions. She was arrested following the publication of an article about an attempted coup against the Nigerian government on March 1, 1995, and was condemned to life imprisonment by a special military tribunal in a trial held behind closed doors on July 4, 1995. Her sentence was commuted to 15 years on October 10, 1995. According to the same sources, her trial was marked by numerous irregularities. She was, notably, denied the right of appeal.Christina Anyanwu is one of four journalists held in detention since the attempted coup in her country where infringements of the rights of the journalists and freedom of the press are innumerable.