Award Winner Updates

Since our most recent posting there have been reports that Akram Raslan is alive, others claiming otherwise. While we hope it is the former, his current status remains unclear. CRNI is working every day with a number of sources to verify that he is alive and relatively well.
Akram Raslan was CRNI’s 2013 winner of the Award for Courage in Editorial Cartooning. Past award winners have hailed from Malaysia, South Africa, Turkey, Palestine, Iran, and India, including last year’s winner, Ali Ferzat, also from Syria. [full story]

Assem Trivedi was chosen as the co-recipient of our 2012 CIEC award for two courageous actions. First, in an atmosphere of increasing censorship and repression in the world’s largest democracy, Mr. Trivedi launched Cartoons Against Corruption to mobilize his fellow citizens against India’s pervasive political corruption.
Then, after being charged with treason and insulting national symbols, Aseem took his second courageous action. Despite the charges and threats of additional charges, he assumed a leadership role in India’s emerging free speech movement. Joining forces with other free speech activists, Aseem launched an online freedom of expression campaign called Save Your Voice: A Movement Against Web Censorship.