Pius Njawé

Pius Njawé (4 March 1957 – 12 July 2010) was a Cameroonian journalist and director of Le Messager as well as Le Messager Populi. Arrested over 100 times for his reporting, Njawé won several awards for his work, including the 1991 CPJ International Press Freedom Award and the 1993 Golden Pen of Freedom. In 2000, he was named one of International Press Institute's fifty World Press Freedom Heroes of the previous fifty years. In Njawé's obituary, the New York Times described him as "a symbol of opposition to the autocratic regime of Paul Biya". before going on to work for the state-owned newspapers La Gazette and the daily Douala Express.

The paper was banned in 1992, forcing Njawé into a short exile in Benin, where he continued to publish. Njawé wrote a book about his prison experience titled Bloc-notes d'un Bagnard ("Notebooks of a Convict"), which he published in 1998. He had eight children. Two years later, he won the World Association of Newspapers' Golden Pen of Freedom Award.

In 2000, he was named one of the Austria-based International Press Institute's fifty World Press Freedom Heroes of the last fifty years. The award citation called him "Cameroon's most beleaguered journalist and one of Africa's most courageous fighters for press freedom".

Death On 12 July 2010, Njawé was killed when a lorry struck a car in which he was riding in Chesapeake, Virginia, US. Njawé had travelled to the city to attend a meeting of the Cameroon Diaspora for Change. Reporters Without Borders stated that Njawé "fought every press freedom struggle. We will not forget, for example that he joined us on a visit to Sarajevo, in 1992, to offer support to 'Oslobodenje', the only newspaper that continued to come out during the war in Yugoslavia."