I’d written about the assassination in December of Gebran Tueni, 48, the crusading publisher of Beirut’s An-Nahar newspaper and the World Association of Newspaper’s board member for Middle East Affairs.
WAN today announced the creation of the Gebran Tueni Award, which will annually honor a newspaper publisher or editor in the Arab world who demonstrates the values upheld by Tueni.
According to WAN, “As a permanent memorial to Mr Tueni, the award, which will carry a 10,000 Euros stipend for newspaper leadership training, will be given to an editor or publisher of an Arabic-language publication whoseactivity reflects a profound attachment to the freedom and independence of the press, courage, leadership, ambition and the search for high managerial and professional standards.”
“Perhaps no one individual contributed as much to our work in the free press field as Gebran in the recent history of our organization,” said Timothy Balding, Chief Executive Officer of WAN.
“Gebran was a unique figure in WAN affairs for almost 20 years, as a leading member of our Press Freedom Committee, a Board member for more than a decade, a regular participant in missions to press freedom ’hot spots’ and a constant adviser and support to the leadership of our organization on Arab and press freedom issues, ” he said.