The CPJ International Press Freedom Award goes to a Tanzanian journalist

Tanzanian journalist Maxence Melo was honored with the Committee to Protect Journalists’ International Press Freedom Award. He joined journalists from Brazil, India and Nicaragua in receiving the prestigious award where he called himself an “accidental journalist.” 
The website he founded in Tanzania, Jamii Forums, had a simple mission: give the youth a voice, offer a space for free expression and fight corruption. Created in 2006, Jamii Forums is mainly published in Swahili and has readers in Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda. It gained notoriety in 2007 with a story regarding corruption in the Central Bank of Tanzania, where millions of dollars were siphoned off. Melo said that was the first time the site was on the receiving end of official intimidation and authorities wanted to know who ran the platform.

But the impact of the site and the response by Tanzanian authorities have been anything but simple. Melo has gone to court 137 times, arrested twice and spent 14 nights in jail just in the past three years.