San San Nweh finally gets 1999 Reporters Without Borders prize

Well-known French TV journalist Christine Ockrent has presented Burmese opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi with the 1999 Reporters Without Borders / Fondation de France Prize to pass on to winner San San Nweh. Ockrent, who is also a member of the board of Reporters Without Borders, handed over the prize at a meeting on 31 December 2002 at the opposition politician's home in Rangoon, where they discussed the fate of other journalists imprisoned in the country, including 73-year-old Win Tin, who has been in jail for the past 13 years. The prize has been awarded every year since 1992 to journalists who through their work, beliefs or attitudes, have shown devotion to the ideal of press freedom. San San Nweh won it in 1999 while she was in prison serving a 10-year sentence imposed in 1994 for "putting out news harmful to the state." She was freed in July 2001 but not allowed to leave the country. Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières) reiterates its call for the release of 16 journalists still held by Burma's military rulers.