Mahfuz Anam new vice-chair of International Press Institute

Mahfuz Anam, the editor of Bangladesh’s English newspaper The Daily Star, has been elected vice-chair of the International Press Institute (IPI).

Besides Mahfuz Anam, editors and media experts from Spain, Turkey, and the United States have been elected vice-chairs of the IPI’s global Executive Board.

IPI is a Vienna-based global network of editors, media executives and leading journalists that works to defend media freedom and support independent journalism wherever they are threatened.

The three other new vice-chairs, selected by their fellow members of the Executive Board shortly after the 2021 IPI World Congress last month, are: Virginia Pérez Alonso, editor-in-chief of the Spanish news site Público and chair of the Platform for the Defence of Free Expression (PDLI), John Daniszewski, vice president, standards and editor at large for the AP and Emre Kizilkaya, the chair of IPI’s Turkey National Committee and the project editor at Journo.com.tr, said the IPI website.

The IPI website further said South Africa’s investigative journalist Khadija Patel was the chairperson of the IPI’s global Executive Board.

“Ten new Board members were also elected during the Congress, from Nigeria, Palestine, Hungary, Turkey, Russia, Jordan, the US, Japan, Finland, and Qatar.”

The IPI Executive Board is elected by the General Assembly with regard to geographic, gender and media, and other forms of diversity, said the IPI website.

It also said the Board chair and vice-chairs are chosen by the Executive Board members.