PARIS, May 3: Zimbabwean editor Geoffrey Nyarota, founder of his country’s only independent daily newspaper, has won this year’s UNESCO World Press Freedom Prize, the United Nations cultural organisation said on Friday.

Nyarota, a black Zimbabwean, founded the independent Daily News in 1999 and has steered the paper to become the biggest seller in the country, despite receiving death threats as he struggles to keep a critical press alive in Zimbabwe.

“The entire team at The Daily News is encouraged by the award and we are inspired to continue our work,” Nyarota, 51, said on UNESCO’s website.

“It is a great honour, but there is one more award that I dearly want. That is to see genuine press freedom for Zimbabwe.”

Nyarota was arrested last month and accused of publishing false information in a story alleging that President Robert Mugabe fraudulently won a March presidential election.

“The government wants all the press and, indeed, all Zimbabweans to be reduced to a level of subservience so that we accept whatever it tells us. We reject that,” Nyarota said. Western poll observers accused Mugabe of cheating in the election.—Reuters