Leuchtturm-Award 2023 goes to Niloufar Hamedi and Elahe Mohammadi

(German version here)

Netzwerk Recherche, the German association of investigative journalists, awards the „Leuchtturm für besondere publizistische Leistungen“ (Lighthouse Award for Extraordinary Achievements in Journalism) to the two Iranian journalists Niloufar Hamedi and Elahe Mohammadi for their courageous reporting on the death of Jina Mahsa Amini.

„Niloufar Hamedi and Elahe Mohammadi are role models. Their work shows us how important and relevant a free press is – and how much power journalistic investigations can unleash,“ says Daniel Drepper, chairman of Netzwerk Recherche.

The two journalists had first reported on the death of the young Kurdish woman Jina Mahsa Amini. Amini, who had been arrested by Iranian morality police, died in mid-September. The case sparked the most serious protests in Iran in years. The Iranian intelligence corps calls the two journalists „foreign agents“ and accuses them of propaganda against the state.

Hamedi and Mohammadi have been imprisoned for around eight months and are currently being tried in camera at the Revolutionary Court in Tehran. They are not the only media representatives being targeted by the Iranian government. Almost a hundred journalists have been arrested and their relatives threatened.

„Niloufar Hamedi and Elahe Mohammadi are an inspiration and motivation for all journalists worldwide. Their work shows what journalism is capable of. That is why we are honouring them with the Netzwerk Recherche Lighthouse Award,“ says Daniel Drepper.

This year’s „Leuchtturm für besondere publizistische Leistungen“ honours Niloufar Hamedi and Elahe Mohammadi for their courage in reporting critically despite repression by the Iranian state. However, they also receive it on behalf of all protesters in Iran who defend human rights in their home country because of the reporting of the two journalists.

„Niloufar Hamedi and Elahe Mohammadi knew they would face consequences for reporting on the death of Jina Mahsa Amini. They went about their task anyway because they are convinced that journalism is nothing more than shedding light on the dark,“ says Iranian journalist Omid Rezaee, who will give the laudatory speech for the award winners.

The award will be presented at the two-day annual conference of Netzwerk Recherche at the public broadcaster NDR in Hamburg. The award ceremony will take place on 16 June 2022 at 3:15 pm (CEST). The award ceremony and other events of the conference will be broadcasted via livestream.

Laudatio from Omid Rezaee

„Excitement, longing, hope, failure, longing, sadness, homesickness, longing, pride, longing, longing.“
That’s how you, Niloufar, describe your emotions as they led you from prison to the courtroom, passing by the editorial office where you had worked until your arrest. You’ve now been held in pre-trial detention for over eight months, much of it in solitary confinement. The exact charges against you are unknown, your supposed trial is taking place behind closed doors, and even your lawyer is not allowed to access your case files.

We may never know what went through your mind, Niloufar, on that September evening when you went to the hospital and reported on the death of Jina Mahsa Amini, and on what her family was going through. Did you already know, in that moment, that you were writing history? Maybe one day, on the morning of your freedom, you’ll tell us in your diary what you were thinking that September night. But one thing is certain: you were aware of the danger. You knew full well that nothing good would come of showing the world the image of Jina’s parents.

And you too, Elahe—you knew exactly what you were doing when you decided to travel to Saqqez, the hometown of Jina Mahsa Amini, murdered by police violence, to report on her funeral. You titled your story: „The Whole Homeland Mourns.“
Looking back, it might bear another title: „The Whole Homeland Fights.“

It was no coincidence, Niloufar, that you—of all journalists—were one of the first to report on the 22-year-old’s death. Your years of reporting make that clear: A few years ago, your story about the brutal murder of a 14-year-old girl by her own father sparked a nationwide debate about domestic violence. Right after the Taliban’s takeover in Afghanistan, you went to the border to report on Afghan refugees. It was you who reported on the waves of suicides among conscripted soldiers. You dared to report on the dangers of illegal abortions in a country where the Islamist regime has criminalized them. You had the courage to expose the fact that self-immolation is a widespread phenomenon among women in western Iran. And last summer, you reported on the violence of the so-called morality police. You warned us—you had already warned the state, long before Jina’s murder, that the morality police were committing acts of violence.

And you, Elahe, it was no coincidence that you traveled to Kurdistan to report on that funeral—a funeral that was not an end, but a beginning.
The beginning of your deprivation of liberty.
The beginning of a new chapter in the fight for our freedom.

In recent years, you have drawn attention to numerous injustices in the country: the outbreak of COVID-19 in the women’s wards of Tehran prisons; street children forced into labor; Afghan migrant children barred from attending school.

You were banned from publishing in any newspaper for a year—one year of professional ban without trial—because you reported on the mass protests in November 2019 and the downing of a passenger plane by Revolutionary Guard missiles. But you didn’t only challenge the intelligence service—you also stood up to your superiors, your own newsroom, when you reported on sexual abuse within the editorial offices. Inequality had no place to hide from your journalistic instinct.

You, Niloufar and Elahe, you both knew exactly what awaited you if you did what you did. And you did it anyway. You fulfilled your journalistic duty because you believed in it—and because you wanted to show us that journalism is nothing less than taking the sun by the hand and carrying it into the dark and eerie corners where the light has been stolen.

And now, for the past eight months, you’ve shown us that your fight for freedom and equality did not end with your arrest.

Elahe, Niloufar, we award you this prize not to praise you. You don’t need that.
This prize is too small for you.
You are too great for this prize—for any prize.

As you once said yourself, Niloufar:
You won the greatest journalism prize the day you gave a voice to the voiceless.

You’ve been unjustly imprisoned for more than eight months, and time and again you’ve made one thing clear:
You miss only one thing—your job.
Journalism.

Dear Elahe, dear Niloufar, we award you this prize to remind ourselves what journalism truly is, what journalism can do, and what our duty as journalists must be.
You remind us—through your resistance and your longing for journalism.

We give you this prize to show that we take your message seriously.

And we are certain that you will endure these dark days.
You must endure them.
Because journalism needs you.

Thank you.