Chandra Muzaffar, the President of the International Movement for a Just World (JUST) in Malaysia, posted an article praising UNESCO (UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) “for awarding the Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize for 2024 to Palestinian journalists covering Gaza. The prize this year was announced in Santiago, Chile in conjunction with World Press Day on 3rd May 2024.”
The prize is named in honor of a Colombian journalist murdered in 1986, Guillermo Cano Isaza, in recognition of the courage shown by journalists who are prepared to carry out their responsibilities in the face of grave danger. Guillermo was a newspaper editor who was a vocal critic of drug barons in his country and in South and Central America.
Chandra notes that “143 journalists have lost their lives in the Israeli assault on Gaza. This is the largest number of journalists killed in a conflict within a certain period of time in a certain demographic setting.” He adds that there are now at least 35,000 slaughtered by the IDF “and Zionist settlers who are allowed to kill Palestinians at random.” He adds his praise to the “large number of citizen journalists telling the truth to relatives and friends through their handphones and other channels. They too are heroes and heroines, because of their indomitable courage and their willingness to take great risks, risks which place their very lives in peril.” He also praised Al Jazeera, which “has its own huge network of journalists on the ground whose courage and integrity are awe inspiring.... It is a shame that such a television station should now be banned by the Israeli authorities from reporting from Occupied Palestine or Israel proper. It only confirms that the Israeli state does not want the world to know the truth about what it is doing in Gaza.”
Chandra adds: “But the truth will prevail in the end. That is the immutable law of life. After more than 75 years of oppression and suppression, of extermination and expulsion, millions and millions of people all over the world have come to know about what Israel really is, and what it has been doing to the Palestinians and other Arabs. Israel is exposed as never before. The whole world now knows that it is an arrogant, cruel and inhuman state and society. It is so selfish and self-serving that it has brought about its own downfall.”
Chandra concludes by noting that “there are also millions of Jews in North America and Europe who are against Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. They want the rights of the Palestinians restored. They are convinced that Jews, Christians and Muslims can live together in peace and harmony.”
