Syrian woman Journalist Zaina Erhaim wins 2015 Peter Mackler Award

A Syria-based woman journalist Zaina Erhaim has won the prestigious 2015 Peter Mackler Award for Courageous and Ethical Journalism. She was bestowed with this award for her efforts to train citizen reporters in her war-ravaged country. She has trained about 100 citizen reporters (third of them are women) from inside Syria over the last two years. She also has helped in establishing new, independent newspapers and magazines in the war-torn country. Presently, Erhaim lives and works in Aleppo, Syria and will be presented with this award at a ceremony to be held at the National Press Club in Washington in late October 2015. It should be noted that since 2011, the media rights group has listed Syria as the deadliest country for journalists.

About Peter Mackler Award--The Peter Mackler Award honors reporters and editors who have demonstrated a commitment to fairness, accuracy and speaking truth to power, and a matching commitment to asserting the right to publish or air that story in countries where independent media is under threat.Jayaprakash Sittampalam Tissainayagam  is a Sri Lankan journalist. He was detained by the Terrorism Investigation Division of the Sri Lanka Police on 7 March 2008. He was held without charge for almost 6 months. He was indicted on politically motivated charges under the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act for intending to incite communal hatred through writing, and furthering terrorist acts through the collection of money for his publication.  Tissainayagam has been named the first winner of the Peter Mackler Award for Courageous and Ethical Journalism.