"Our governments do not yet accept a free media and thus respect their citizens’ right for a voice"

I would like to express my deep respect for the Klebnikov family for their dedication in keeping alive the legacy of Paul Klebnikov.I would like to pay tribute to Paul. It takes a big heart and full dedication to the highest values of journalism to do the kind of reporting that he did for the people of Russia.

I take this award as a gesture of support from the international journalism community for their colleagues in Central Asia.

In Central Asia, we are still struggling for our professional rights: the right to ask questions, to seek the truth and convey it to public. Our governments do not yet accept and allow a free media and thus respect their citizens’ right for a voice.

But it will never happen if we wait around.

I believe that freedom is about self-respect, dignity and integrity. Freedom is inside every one of us. It’s not something that anyone can give or take away from you. It’s when we ourselves forget that we are free that it becomes easy for someone to suppress us.

For journalists working in authoritarian countries, it’s important to find this freedom inside. Only then can we do our job.

I chose to become a journalist during Gorbachev’s “perestroika” and “glasnost” years, when the Soviet media suddenly obtained a free voice. I saw how the country was changing; I felt it was becoming easier to breathe.

That media transformation heralded the collapse of the totalitarian Soviet state. However, splinters of that system have survived to this day in Central Asia.

I hope to write a story one day that will tell the world that Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan have held their first free elections. That stability has returned to Kyrgyzstan. That dissidents languishing in Uzbek and Turkmen jails have been freed. That all the victims of the Andijan massacre have been counted, named and paid last respects to.

On this special night, I would like to thank my father, who is a journalist and writer, for encouraging me to follow in his footsteps. As a child I used to fall asleep to the sound of his typewriter, or to the crackling sound of his old transistor radio as he tried deep into the night to catch some faraway radio stations to get independent news about what was going on in the Soviet Union.

I would like to thank my sister Galima, another journalist in our family, for energizing me with her passion to defend those suppressed, abused and wronged.

I would like to thank my mother and two other sisters for being models of integrity and self-respect. And I would like to thank the Klebnikovs and the International Center for Journalists for their support. 

The Paul Klebnikov Fund recognizes an experienced journalist whose work best exemplifies Klebnikov’s vision of journalism as a force for civic betterment in Russia and the rest of the former Soviet Union.

Bagila Bukharbayeva had to flee her native Uzbekistan because of the government’s response to her independent coverage of the Andijan uprising in May 2005. Now Bukharbayeva works as the Central Asia correspondent for the Associated Press news service. She is responsible for the wire service’s coverage of the region, supervising and editing the work of stringers.

She has 12 years’ journalism experience, a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Tashkent State University and a master’s degree in international journalism from City University in London, England.

Bukharbayeva also participated in the October 11 panel discussion: "Journalists Under Fire: Covering Conflict in Four Global Hot Spots" at the National Press Club.