Dominican ambassador and veteran journalist Juan Bolívar Díaz has received the Flores Magón Award during a ceremony at the auditorium of the National Academy of History and Geography of Mexico in Mexico City.
The distinction was awarded to Díaz for his half-century of militant journalism in defense of freedom of expression and human and civil rights in the Dominican Republic.
Career in journalism
Díaz was the first recipient presented with the award during the ceremony on Wednesday, August 5. A total of ten individuals were recognized at the event.
The nomination for the Dominican ambassador was proposed by Raúl Gómez Espinosa, director of the magazine Proyección Económica and president of the Mexican Institute of Sciences and Humanities.
The nine other honorees included communicators, a film director, lawyers, and social leaders from Mexico City as well as the states of Oaxaca and Chiapas, all recognized for their defense of freedom of expression in Mexico.
During the ceremony, organizers read a summary of Díaz's extensive career as a communicator, social leader, academic, and diplomat. He graduated in 1967 from the Carlos Septién García School of Journalism in Mexico City, an institution founded in 1949 as one of the region's first journalism academies.
History of the Flores Magón Award
The Flores Magón Award was instituted in the year 2000 by Proyección Económica magazine in coordination with journalists' associations. The annual distinction consists of a bronze statuette and a parchment created to exalt the memory of the most noted Mexican journalist of all time.
The award honors Ricardo Flores Magón, born in 1873 and deceased in 1922, who is remembered as a precursor to the Mexican Revolution of the early 20th century for confronting the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz through his journalistic work.
The presentation ceremony brought together prominent figures from social communication, academia, professional organizations, and civil society institutions. Díaz also recently released his memoirs under the title Con las riendas tensas.
