Press House honoring Winners of Press House Annual Award for Media Freedom 2021

Gaza - Press House

On Thursday, 17 June, 2021, Press House – Palestine (BAS) honored the Winners of its Annual Award for Media Freedom 2021‎, during the 8th anniversary ceremony organized at Heaven's Hall in Gaza City, with consideration of high preventive measures to prevent the outbreak of Coronavirus.

Mr. Belal Jadallah, Head of the Board – at Press House‎, media professionals, writers, intellectuals, a number of new journalists and media activists attended the ceremony which was limited to a very specific number.

In his speech, Mr. Jadallah welcomed the attendance and pointing out that Press House organizing this ceremony at small scale which comes in exceptional situations and not like previous years, because of the last Israeli escalation against the Gaza Strip and what left behind of killing, destruction and displacement, also because of the preventive measures to reduce the spread of Coronavirus.

Jadallah thanked the journalists (women and men) as they are knights of word and photo, working in all situations under any circumstances to convey the truth to the entire world. As well as, he expressed his sympathies on martyred journalists who killed in defensing freedom of speech and sound of truth.

He said: “Today, we celebrate the announcement and honoring the winners of Press House Annual Award for Media Freedom, which is awarded to enhance freedom of expression, democracy, community reconciliation, national unity, tolerance, humanitarian issues, women and youth issues and academic issues. These topics distinguished Press House award every single year, in order to encourage as many as possible journalists (women and men) to work on these important topics which effect the Palestinian media speech and community.

Jadallah called for enhancing joint media efforts to defend media freedom at all situations and focusing the role of media in documenting violations committed by Israeli Occupation against Palestinian media and publish it in the international media, to expose Israeli Occupation and their illegal practices against media freedoms at international level.

Also, he was renewed an invitation for the international community to pressure on Israeli Occupation to stop their violations against journalists rights in Palestine, and to chase the journalists' killers and work towards providing field protection for Palestinian journalists (women and men) during their work.

At the end of his speech, Mr. Jadallah congratulated all winners of the annual award for this year, and he wished success to those who didn't succeeded to won the award this year and to win it in the coming years.

He also expressed his thank to evaluation committees, which worked with professionalism and transparency to select the winners according to the criteria set for the award.

During the ceremony, a short film was played which documenting the sequence of previous years since launching Press House Annual Award for Media Freedom, and contributions of participants in various fields, and also winners over the past years.

In her speech, Ms. Rasha Abu Jalalah, representing evaluation committees, reviewed the work of formed evaluation committees at Press House to evaluate the submitted materials for the award for " Journalistic Story (Features), Short Film Using Smart Phones". categories

The committee of Journalistic Story (Features), included the journalists: Alaa Abu Eisha, Rasha Abu Jalala and Fadi Al Hasani.

The committee of Short Film Using Smart Phones included the journalists: Ahmed Shaqoura, Hazem Abu Hamed and Hisham Zaqout.

Ms. Abu Jalalah said, "The committees evaluated the submitted materials based on the conditions and standards at Press House Award and according to the following topics: freedom of expression, democracy, humanitarian issues, national unity, tolerance, academic and educational aspect, women and youth issues, where one winner won the best scores in the Journalistic Story (Features) category ‎ and one winner won the first place in the Short Film Using Smart Phones category

Ms. Abu Jalalah ‎ followed: "The evaluation process was conducted with integrity, transparency and high accountability, as an evaluation model was adopted for each category of the award according to committee members and Press House separately, then the first materials with the highest evaluation scores were determined." And she noted that in case of equal grades between two advanced materials, the decision is make depending on voting of committee members on the grades of equal materials.

Ms. Abu Jalalah noted that during the work, the members of the committees were not aware of the names of the applicants, as the articles were referred to by numbers and not by the names of their owners and used blinding archiving and classification

At the end of ceremony, Press House awarded its writers appreciation award for 2021 to the writer and journalist Mr. Tawfiq Abu Shoomar.

Abu Shoomarar said that: "I am proud of Press House for this honoring and this wonderful gesture", and he expressed his grateful for the Press House role in transforming media to an indestructible body.

At the end of ceremony, the winners of Annual Award for Media Freedom 2021 were announced for each category:

Journalistic Story (Features) Category were evaluated by Rasha Abu Jalala, Fadi Al Hasani, Alaa Abu Eisha, the winner was Saja Hamdan.

short films using smart phones Category were evaluated by: Ahmed Shaqoura, Hazem Abu Hamid and Hisham Zaqout, the winners were (Neima Al Masry, Inas Al Diri, Mahmoud Abu Muslim) for their film “Here is the Gaza”.