Ibrahim Essa wins 2008 Gebran Tueni Award
Ibrahim Essa, editor of Al Dustour, has won the 2008 Gebran Tueni Award. The annual award honours Gebran Tueni, the Lebanese publisher who was killed in a Beirut car bomb in 2005 and is presented by the World Association of Newspapers and aims to recognise an editor or publisher in the Arab region,
Al Dustour was founded in 1995 and closed by Egyptian authorities from 1998-2005 after it published a letter from a militant group. When the paper resumed publishing with its 30 journalists, it had a circulation of 50,000, and is now at 120,000, due “in large part because of Essa’s leadership,” according to WAN.
Essa has faced several attempts of censorship, indictments and court cases at his post, including prison sentences and fines for “general security disturbance,” “defaming the president,” “insulting the president” and “spreading false rumors.” link