NPC's 2009 Int'l Press Freedom Award Presented to Recipient's Widow, 6:30 pm April 21

The widow of the 2009 recipient of the NPC Freedom of the Press Award for an international journalist will receive the honor on behalf of her late husband at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 21, in the Holeman Lounge.

The presentation of the award will be followed by an interview conducted by Club member Marvin Kalb of Harvard’s Joan Shorenstein Center for Press, Politics and Public Policy.

Sonali Samarasinghe will accept the award on behalf of Lasantha Wickramatunga, a Sri Lankan journalist who was murdered in January 2009.

Wickramatunga was the editor in chief of The Sunday Leader in Colombo, Sri Lanka, when assailants blocked his car and struck him repeatedly with sharpened metal bars, killing him. In the next issue of the Sunday Leader, an editorial appeared telling who was responsible for his death. Wickramatunga had written it in anticipation that the Sri Lankan government would kill him.

Samarasinghe, also a journalist, is a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University this year and continues Wickramatunga’s struggle for press freedom in Sri Lanka.

The event is co-hosted by the Club’s Freedom of the Press and International Correspondents committees as well as by ICF-America, an organization committed to promoting the positive values of a free press.

Admission is free, but seats are limited. Please reserve by calling 202-662-7501.