TURKISH JOURNALISTS ASSOCIATION AWARDS

Turkish Journalists Association held 2011 Turkey Journalism Achievement Awards ceremony on the evening of April 24, Tuesday. The 52. year of the ceremony was at Turkey Exporters Assembly Hall and the head of Turkish Journalists Association Orhan Erinç made the opening speech and reminded that many journalists were still in jail.

bianet received 'The best news website award' at the ceremony. Çiçek Tahaoğlu, Editor of Women's Rights took the award on behalf of bianet team and said "We win this award with our 'violence against women and freedom of expression' page and we are also happy for that. Thank you."

Bianet was nominated candidate on Internet Journalism category with its page on 25 November 2011 containing special news regarding International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.

Nedim Şener, author at Posta newspaper gave a reward to Nazım Alpman who received an award on documentary category. In his speech Şener reminded the journalists in the jail and he underlined the importance of remembering the journalists in jail.

Şener showed the identity card that was given to him when he was in jail and added:

"You may bump into the state barriers even though you work properly. One of our colleagues received an award with the photograph of Aziz Şener in custody. Let me help him in this way. The state gives you a card like this and so it declares that you are a terrorist. Therefore you don't need to look elsewhere in order to find this photo. More than 90 journalists are waiting to be released. I ask you not to forget them. We'll go on calling them as 'journalists' even though the state prefers calling them as 'terrorist'."

Only 3 awards out of 36 were for women

The selection committee determining the awards consisted of 6 women, 15 men; 33 awards out of 36 were given to men.