Journalists who have endured death threats, physical attacks and imprisonment are being honored in New York with Press Freedom Awards. The Committee to Protect Journalists’ 2015 International Press Freedom Awards will be presented to Malaysia’s Zulkiflee Anwar Ulhaque, Paraguay’s Candido Figueredo Ruiz and bloggers and journalists from Ethiopia and Syria.

1. Ulhaque, CPJ’s first cartoonist awardee, is charged with sedition and faces a possible jail sentence for drawings lampooning high-level abuse in the Malaysian government.
2. Ruiz lives under 24-hour police protection for reporting on drug smuggling on the Brazil-Paraguay border.
3. The Ethiopian honorees are bloggers for the Zone 9 group, whose name is a reference to the eight zones of a notorious prison. Six of the bloggers have been arrested and charged with terrorism for critical reporting.
4. The Syrians are affiliated with the citizen journalist collective Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently. The committee described it as one of the few independent news sources that continue to report from inside the Islamic State’s self-proclaimed capital.

Veteran Associated Press foreign correspondent Kathy Gannon, who was shot six times by an Afghan security officer while on assignment in Afghanistan, will receive the Burton Benjamin Memorial Award for lifetime achievement in the cause of press freedom.

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