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TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF) announced on Thursday, May 14, the winners of the 37th Courage in Journalism Awards to honor women journalists who expose the truth under dangerous conditions and extreme pressure.
According to the IWMF official website, Iranian sisters and print reporters, Elaheh and Elnaz Mohammadi, are among the 2026 winners. Georgia Fort, a broadcast journalist from the United States, and Nay Min Ni (pseudonym), a digital journalist reporting from Myanmar, were also listed as the annual awards recipients.
Covering violence in the Philippines and is now imprisoned within the system, Filipino journalist Frenchie Mae Cumpio clinched the IWMF’s 2026 Wallis Anneberg Justice for Women Journalist Award. This title is given each year to a journalist who is unjustly detained, jailed, or imprisoned.
Selected from nominees across 53 nationalities, the 2026 Courage Award winners highlight the global erosion of press freedom, driven by increasing legal pressure, gender-based intimidation, and digital harassment. Across continents and political systems, each winner works in a different context but confronts a shared reality: the front lines have shifted, and journalism itself has become the target.
IWMF President Elisa Lees Munoz said that the criminalization of truth-telling makes courage the future of journalism. “For the women who dare to report, journalism itself is being reframed as a punishable act. We no longer live in a world of reactive suppression but preemptive deterrence, where reporting itself is a liability. The IWMF is proud to honor Elaheh, Elnaz, Frenchie, Georgia, and Nay – women who are living with the very risk they document – with Courage Awards this year.”
Ni has gone into hiding in Myanmar after reporting on human rights abuses and the civil war under a military regime that criminalizes journalism. Couraging social justice and community-based reporting, Fort was arrested this winter and now faces federal felony charges after documenting an anti-ICE protest inside a U.S. church.
The Mohammadi sisters have reported for years on systemic state control and violence in Iran—one of the world’s most restrictive media environments—and have faced arrest, imprisonment, and censorship for their work. Cumpio has been detained as a political prisoner since 2020 on widely disputed charges. She was targeted for her reporting on human rights, rural inequality, and the effects of militarization.
The selection committee of the 2026 IWMF Courage in Journalism Awards said that this year’s winners reveal a common truth: from Minneapolis to Mandalay, Tehran to Tacloban, freedom is shrinking at the core, with women leading the frontlines.
“We commend this year’s recipients for bearing witness and continuing to report, despite coordinated efforts intended to silence their voices, especially in environments where the truth is under threat of erasure,” Munoz concluded.
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