The 2005 winner of the MISA Press Freedom Award Raymond Louw The Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) awarded the 2005 MISA Press Freedom Award to South-Africa-based editor and media freedom activist, Raymond Louw, in recognition of his tireless campaigning for an enabling environment for media freedom and freedom of expression in our region. Raymond Louw was honoured at MISA’s annual meeting in Windhoek in September 2005 where colleagues paid tribute to his lifelong career in media development and activism. Louw is currently the Deputy Chairperson of MISA-South Africa and holds numerous positions in the media. He is the Editor and Publisher of Southern Africa Report, a weekly current affairs briefing. He further acts as the Africa consultant for the World Press Freedom Committee, is a council member of the South African National Editors’ Forum and the Freedom of Expression Institute. Louw is a general consultant on media, politics and governmental affairs. He is actively campaigning, on behalf of several organisations, for the recognition of a free media in the New Economic Partnership for African Development (Nepad) African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM). He has made several interventions on behalf of endangered journalists and was successful in securing the release of at least two journalists, Pius Njawe (Cameroon,1998) and Ali Lamrabet (Morocco, 2004) who were detained under ‘insult’ laws. Louw continues to make substantial contribution to media freedom in SADC and Africa. Previous winners of the MISA Press Freedom Award 1993 - Onesimo Makani Kabweza The late Onesimo Makani Kabweza, as editor of Moto in Zimbabwe, was one of the first Zimbabwean journalists to break the “culture of silence” which followed the country’s independence in 1980. Onesimo dared to take a critical stand against the new Zimbabwean government under Robert Mugabe at a time when others were too scared to criticise or speak out against any government wrongdoing. He was very enthusiastic about the need for southern African media workers to unify and thus shared the dreams and aspirations of MISA. At the time of his death in 1993, Onesimo was on his way back from a trip to Harare on MISA business. So This Is Democracy? 2005 -291- Media Institute of Southern Africa