BEIRUT, Lebanon - A Lebanese journalist who lost one of her hands and her left leg in a car bomb attack last September has won a top United Nations prize celebrating freedom of the press. May Chidiac, whose news bulletins and Sunday programmes on Lebanese TV station LBC are among the most widely followed in Lebanon, owes her popularity as much to her professionalism as to her direct and open approach in a country traumatized by years of war, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) said.

An international jury of media professionals selected her for the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize 2006.

Created in 1997 by UNESCO’s executive board, the prize honours the work of an individual or an organisation defending or promoting freedom of expression anywhere in the world, especially if this action puts the individual’s life at risk. The prize is named after Colombian journalist Guillermo Cano, who was assassinated in 1987 after denouncing the activities of powerful drug barons in his country.

The car bomb attack on Chidiac, leading to the amputation of a hand and her left leg, shook Lebanese popular opinion, which came to view her as a symbol of freedom of expression. It closely resembled the fatal attack on Samir Kassir, a journalist from the daily An Nahar, five months earlier and another similar attack in December on the editor of An-Nahar, Gebran Tueni. (AKI)