Journalists must call things by their names. This is what Italian journalist and recipient of the 2016 Hrant Dink Freedom of Speech Award Anna Mazzone said in an interview with NEWS.am. According to her, deep down inside, all journalists are like Hrant, meaning they are pigeons that don’t want to fold their wings.

The award was granted to Anna Mazzone (Panorama, Radio Rai, freelancer) and Franca Giansoldati (Il Messaggero) during a ceremony held in Rome on March 1.

“I am very moved by and grateful for being recognized with an award like the Hrant Dink Award. I never personally met Hrant Dink. I only knew him for his articles. I found out about him after 19 January 2007 when he was killed in central Istanbul. The memory of Hrant Dink lived amongst the crowd of people on the streets on the day of his funeral service and in the voices of people who were unanimously demanding fair restitution for his murder.  I got to know him through the eyes of his daughter, who was as beautiful and dignified as he was. I got to know them through their relatives’ words. Those people have a special place in my life. They helped me continue to love Turkey. When I found out that the council of the Armenian community of Rome had decided to grant me an award in memory of Hrant, I couldn’t hold back my tears. I am very grateful, even though I haven’t done anything to be honored like this. Now I have a responsibility. I must try to deserve recognition, without ever forgetting what Hrant taught me. He taught me to never be afraid of telling the truth and call things by their names. What happened to the Armenians in 1915 was neither a pogrom, nor a massacre, nor mass killings. It was genocide. That is the simple truth,” Anna Mazzone said.

Since 2015, the journalist has been on Azerbaijan’s ��?black list’ for shooting a documentary film about Karabakh. “According to the Azerbaijani regime, I illegally penetrated into Nagorno-Karabakh. But that’s wrong. I left for the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic by crossing the only open border to produce a film about the forgotten war that is still taking lives and causing pain,” she said.

The film was shown on SKY TG24 TV channel and was a great success. A part of the film can be seen by typing the search words “Nagorno Karabakh, la guerra dimenticata” (“Nagorno-Karabakh, the Forgotten War”) on Youtube.

“I believe the attention to that film shows that viewers want to know more about what they usually don’t talk about,” the journalist added.