Abducted, tortured and sexually assaulted journalist Jineth Bedoya is a speaker and panellist at the World News Media Congress, following the announcement of WAN-Ifra's Golden Pen of Freedom award.
The announcement of the 2016 award will be made at the start of the congress being held in Cartagena, Columbia, from June 12-14.
While covering the country's war against terrorism for Colombian newspaper El Espectador, Jineth Bedoya went to La Modelo maximum security prison on May 25, 2000, to investigate alleged arms sales between paramilitaries and state officials... and
was abducted, tortured and sexually assaulted by three paramilitaries.
During the attack, one perpetrator told her to "pay attention, we are sending a message to the press in Colombia".
Nor did her story end there: In 2003, while working for El Tiempo, she was kidnapped again, this time by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), who held her for five days.
A long and incredible story of delayed justice has followed - tracked by Ifex - during which time Bedoya has become a leading advocate in the fight against impunity and for the rights of women affected by Colombia's political violence.
Her campaign No Es Hora De Callar (Now is not the time to remain silent) tackles the "habitual, extensive and systematic" kidnap and rape of women in Colombia's internal wars. Now, as Colombia embarks on a formal peace process with its two main insurgent groups, Bedoya has been nominated as a recipient of the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize, alongside Colombia's president, Juan Manuel Santos, Timoleon "Timochenko" Jimenez, commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and four other victims of the armed conflict which began in 1960.
In 2000, Bedoya was awarded the CJFE International Press Freedom Award, sponsored by the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression; in 2001, she received the Courage In Journalism Award of the International Women's Media Foundation; and in 2012, she was awarded the International Women of Courage Award.
This year, after 16 years of escaping justice, two of the men who started her on her path of advocacy, were finally sentenced in what she told the Committee to Protect Journalists, was "the first step towards real justice".
"It is the first in a long road, and it arrives just as the two most important newspapers in Colombia have decided to jointly publish the investigation that was cut off by my kidnapping."
An article by Bedoya titled 'The Sadness of May 25' will be published by the CPJ on April 27 in the 2016 edition of its publication Attacks on the Press.
At the World News Media Congress, she will take part in a press freedom roundtable, 'Covering conflict - making a difference' session.
WAN-Ifra says with press freedom "at the core of our organisation", solidarity and support are needed now more than ever - 2016 has already seen newsrooms taken over by governments, journalists attacked, threatened and arrested, troubling new laws that seek to restrict the role of the press, and more.
"Congress gives editors and publishers the ideal opportunity to discuss solutions to these challenges, beginning with two events on June 12."
-WAN-Ifra