"There are no inviolable for free journalists" | Press releases | '
‘ director Peter Limbourg presented the award in the evening as part of the Global Media Forum in the World Conference Center. Hernández receives the award for her outstanding commitment to freedom of expression and her fight against corruption, cover-up and impunity in her homeland. The laudatory speech was given by British journalist and author Misha Glenny.
"I'm here today, I'm under you. But in the nearly ten years I've been threatened, more than 100 journalists have been executed in my country as a result of their work, "Hernández said in her acceptance speech. "We journalists live in the most violent time of recent history," lamented the laureate.
In many countries, "democracy is threatening and the freedoms we have struggled so hard". In many cases, it is no longer the citizens who decide daily on their fate, but groups that combine day by day more political, economic, technological and social power. They work in the legal and illegal fields, "said Hernández. Organized crime exists not only in Mexican drug cartels, "but also outside of Mexico in companies, banks and stock exchanges".
These groups loved "the dark, the opaque," only then they achieved their goals. "It is our job as journalists to find out what they do, how they do it, why they do it and who their accomplices are," the award winner said. "On countless occasions we come to the truth, to which neither prosecutors nor judges penetrate, because these are often dependent on these power groups, especially in countries like Mexico."
"We are still standing and making ourselves heard"
The powerful often managed to escape justice, according to Hernández. "But they can not escape the independent, persistent, accurate journalism. They want to be inviolable, but for free journalists, free media, there are no inviolable, "said the laureate. "That's why they kill us. Therefore this hunt for independent journalists and media. "
She called for strengthening the worldwide cooperation of media workers. For that you need rules, common interests, flexible platforms. "No one here wants to live in fear, but keeping silence is not life," said Hernández.
The price does not apply to her personally, he applies the murdered journalist "and all those who do their job day after day, with morality and perseverance." The laureate: "They want us to be dead, to be silenced – but we are still standing and making our voices heard."
‘ director general Peter Limbourg said: "Anabel Hernández's coverage of corruption and drug cartels is an impressive example of bold investigative journalism. We need to protect and support our colleagues who continue to seek the truth despite their personal danger. "
"The prizewinner is a walking miracle"
Praising Misha Glenny, author of bestseller McMafia and a former correspondent for The Guardian and BBC, praised Anabel Hernández for being "one of those courageous analysts who revealed how state employees enriched the drug war as illegally as the cartels." The laureate has revealed "these entanglements and the greed that drive this demonic network" in countless articles and numerous bestsellers.
But the most serious, according to Glenny, is that "this bloodshed in Mexico, the misery that Anabel Hernández feels compelled to document, is largely the result of a failed policy, largely steered from Washington DC, conscientiously implemented by governments in Central and South America ". Given the dangers that journalists are exposed to here, the laureate is something of a "walking miracle". This miracle simply consists in the fact that she is still with us, "says Glenny.
Apart from the meticulousness with which she conducts her research, Anabel Hernández has a very elegant writing style. "It combats injustice both with truth and with beauty," said the laudator in the old plenary hall of the German Bundestag.
Anabel Hernández and "Los Señores del Narco"
Anabel Hernández, born in Mexico in 1971, is an accredited investigative journalist on government corruption, drug trafficking and sexual exploitation. Motivated and driven, she says, not least by the fate of her father; he was abducted and murdered in Mexico City in 2000. The case has not been solved until today.
Hernández became known internationally through her 2010 bestseller "Los Señores del Narco" (English version: "Narcoland") on the ties between senior Mexican government officials and the country's drug cartels. After death threats, she had to leave Mexico in 2015. Since then she lives in exile, now in Europe.
In the fall of 2018, her book on unsolved murders of 43 students in the Mexican state of Guerrero in 2014 appeared in English translation ("A massacre in Mexico: The true story behind the missing forty-three students").
First woman among the winners
Anabel Hernández is the first woman among the winners. Since 2015, Deutsche Welle has bestowed the Freedom of Speech Award on a person or initiative that has made outstanding contributions to human rights and freedom of expression in the media.
So far the awards have been awarded blogger Raif Badawi, still detained in Saudi Arabia (2015), the former editor-in-chief of the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet, Sedat Ergin (2016), the US White House Correspondents' Association (2017) as well as the Iranian political scientist Sadegh Zibakalam (2018). The Freedom of Speech Award will be presented at the Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum in Bonn.
At the twelfth edition of the international media conference in the World Conference Center Bonn, around 2,000 guests from 140 countries have been discussing this year's focus topic "Shifting powers" since Monday.
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