Arab News wins six honors at European Newspaper Award program

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The jury panel for this year comprised 15 judges from nine countries. (ENA))
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The Saudi National Day 2022 design won the design excellence award in the Special Editions category. (AN)
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Updated 20 December 2022
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Arab News wins six honors at European Newspaper Award program

  • Recent wins bring the newspaper’s design awards tally to nearly 100 in just 4 years

RIYADH: Arab News, the leading English-language daily in the Middle East, has won six awards at the 24th edition of the prestigious European Newspaper Award program, bringing the total tally to nearly 100 awards since 2018. 

The jury panel for this year comprised 15 judges from nine countries including Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Germany.   

This year, the European Newspaper Award jury honored Arab News across six categories: Environmental Protection, Visualization, Sectional Front Pages, Visual Storytelling, Illustration and Special Editions. 

“For Arab News to be recognized with these awards is a great honor. There were over 4,000 entries from all over Europe, so to win six Awards of Excellence for our design is a brilliant achievement,” said Arab News’ Creative Director Simon Khalil.  

The paper’s special commemorative issue for Saudi National Day 2022, which featured infographics, photo-based stories and long-form stories, won the design excellence award in the Special Editions category. 

Its simple and effective designs for the stories “The danger of saying ‘NO’,” which sheds light on violence against women, won in the Sectional Front Pages category, and the op-ed “Germany’s post-Merkel checklist” by Helmut K. Anheier, adjunct professor of social welfare at UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs and professor of sociology at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin, and Edward L. Knudsen, research associate at the Hertie School, won in the Visualization category.   

  

The paper created animated and eye-catching imagery for the story “Saudi’s animal kingdom” published on Endangered Species Day, which won in the Environmental Protection Category.  

The design for the op-ed “Europe’s climate diplomacy heats up” by Laurence Tubiana, former French ambassador to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, CEO of the European Climate Foundation and a professor at Sciences Po, Paris, won in the Illustration category, while the graphic design for the story “KSA prepares to tap resource-rich seas for fishing bounty” won in the Visual Storytelling category. 

“Recognition for Arab News’ design helps us raise the profile of our brand and reinforces the creative vision we implement on a daily basis. These awards will push the whole Arab News team to deliver bigger and better design for all our readers globally. Our readers are the priority, and it is our mission to create innovative design for them to enjoy,” Khalil added. 

Arab News relaunched in 2018 with a commitment to becoming digital-first and design-focused. The new brand identity was reflected in its cutting-edge editorial and fresh design approach.  

Since then, the paper has amassed nearly 100 design accolades across global awards programs such as the Society for News Design, the Asian Newspaper Design Awards, the WAN-IFRA Asian Media Awards, the Indigo Design Awards, the Society of Publication Designers and more.  


Jailed French journalist files appeal in Algeria’s top court: lawyers

Updated 15 December 2025
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Jailed French journalist files appeal in Algeria’s top court: lawyers

  • Gleizes was arrested in May 2024 after traveling to Tizi Ouzou in northeastern Algeria’s Kabylia region — home to the Amazigh Kabyle people — to write about the country’s most decorated football club, Jeunesse Sportive de Kabylie

ALGIERS: French journalist Christophe Gleizes, sentenced to seven years behind bars in Algeria on terror-related charges, has filed an appeal seeking a new trial with the country’s highest court, his lawyers said Sunday.
“Christophe Gleizes registered an appeal at (the court of) Cassation” on Sunday, the deadline for filing, his French lawyer Emmanuel Daoud told AFP in a message, declining to comment further.
Gleizes’ Algerian lawyer Amirouche Bakouri made a similar announcement on Facebook.
Earlier this month, an Algerian appeals court upheld the seven-year prison term for the sportswriter, who was first convicted of “glorifying terrorism” in June.
Gleizes was arrested in May 2024 after traveling to Tizi Ouzou in northeastern Algeria’s Kabylia region — home to the Amazigh Kabyle people — to write about the country’s most decorated football club, Jeunesse Sportive de Kabylie.
In 2021, he had met in Paris with the head of the Movement for the Self-Determination of Kabylie (MAK), a foreign-based group designated a terrorist organization by Algiers earlier that year.
At this month’s appeal hearing, Gleizes had said he did not know the MAK had been listed as a terrorist organization, and asked the court’s forgiveness for his “journalistic mistakes.”
The court’s decision to uphold his sentence was denounced by the rights group Reporters Without Borders (RSF), as well as the French government.
Gleizes’s jailing comes at a time of diplomatic friction between Paris and Algiers that began last year when France officially backed Moroccan sovereignty over the disputed Western Sahara region, where Algeria backs the pro-independence Polisario Front.
He is currently France’s only journalist imprisoned abroad, according to RSF, and French President Emmanuel Macron has vowed to work toward his release.

Mother makes plea

The mother of the jailed journalist Christophe Gleizes wrote a letter to Algeria’s president requesting he pardon her son from his seven-year sentence on terror-related charges.
“I respectfully ask you to consider granting Christophe a pardon, so that he may regain his freedom and his family,” Sylvie Godard wrote in the letter, which was dated December 10 and seen by AFP on Monday.
“Nowhere in any of his writings will you find any trace of statements hostile to Algeria and its people,” she wrote in her letter to President Abdelmadjid Tebboune.