The German ZEIT-Stiftung says she get the award because of her engagement for freedom of the press and independent reporting appears in talks and helpful exchange within the Barents Region.
The Norwegian Freedom of Expression Foundation underlines Larionova’s outstanding long-time work for cross-border media contacts in the Barents Region.
Since the 90ties, Murmansk journalist Elena Larionova has been the engine in the Barents Press organisation, an independent journalist network with members from all the four countries in the Barents Region.
She is working both for the Barents Press’s Murmansk office and as a local reporter in the Murmansk newspaper Polyarnaya Pravda.
Elena Larionova was nominated by the Norwegian Helsinki Committee and the Human Right’s House Foundation in Oslo. Larionova receives 10,000 €.
The two other journalists awarded are Rauf Mirkadirov in the newspaper Zerkalo in Baku and Victoria Ivleva working for Novaya Gazeta in Moscow.
Reporters Without Frontiers recently published its Report on the conditions of freedom of press in the world in 2007. The Report says the situation for journalists in Russia has worsened in all fronts the last year.
