Jury 
2023

Evgeny Poddubny is a war correspondent and producer of documentaries and special reports. He leads VGTRK's Middle East and North Africa Bureau. Throughout his career, he has covered numerous armed conflicts, reporting from Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Pakistan, among others. His work in Syria and Ukraine earned him three prestigious TEFI awards. He also co-ordinates the Russian Humanitarian Mission, a charity organization in Syria.

Semion Senderov is a correspondent and news anchor at RT Spanish. He has covered Russia’s Special Military Operation from the very beginning. Throughout his career, he has worked as a special correspondent in Cuba, and also reported on economic and political news in Latin America and the Middle East. He also covered the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, and the Nuclear decommissioning in North Korea.

Salam Musafir has been a Foreign Affairs Correspondent since 1982. He is a specialist in covering international news, particularly war zones and unstable regions, mostly in the Middle East, North Africa and Afghanistan. He was the only Arabic journalist to visit Chernobyl just 2 weeks after the 1986 disaster. He has been working for RT since the launch of its Arabic channel in 2007.

Ahmed Gomaa is an Egypt-based journalist and correspondent specializing in Arab affairs. He currently works for Youm7, which has the most-visited website of any Egyptian newspaper. He has covered critical regional challenges and written multiple analytical essays and opinion pieces. Ahmed covered the war against ISIS in Iraq from 2014-2017 and has been reporting on the Middle Eastern file "Syria – Libya – Palestine (Gaza)" since 2012. He also covers Israel’s wars in Gaza.

During the professional career, Amr Abdelhamid has worked as a bureau chief in Moscow and a presenter for: Abu Dhabi TV, Al Arabiya, Al Jazeera, BBC Arabic, Sky News Arabia, and others. He has covered significant global events: the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon; political crises in Georgia, Egypt, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan; sessions of the UN General Assembly; G7 and G20 summits; U.S. and Russian presidential elections, and other significant events. He has interviewed the leaders of many countries, including Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Tunisia, Yemen, Pakistan, and South Sudan.

He began his career as a war correspondent during the Lebanese Civil War, in Al-Watan newspaper, worked as a writer and journalist in Al-Hurriya magazine, then in Al-Hadaf newspaper.

Mohammed covered war in Kosovo and Macedonia, NATO war on Serbia, and the massacres in Rwanda and Zaire, American war on Afghanistan, invasion of Iraq in 2003, Lebanon War in 2006, covered the “Arab Spring” in Tunisia, Libya, and Syria.

He worked for Kuwait TV, Al-Hayat and Al-Dustour newspapers, Radio Monte Carlo and Al-Sharq Radio and for Al-Jazeera, for the first French channel TF1, for the French channel 4, for the Al-Alam channel, for As-Safir newspaper.

He also was a correspondent for the BBC in Paris from 2009 until 2017.

Ayanda Hollow hails from Cape Town. The University of Cape Town Student leader activist who survived Apartheid is the President of TV BRICS AFRICA. A former Director of International Media Relations in South Africa. Hollow served as the Adviser to the Deputy Minister of Communications. In this role, he played pivotal policy work in the governance of the board of the SABC, the Films & Publications Board, the Media Development and Diversity Agency.
A writer contributing to African publications, including the Daily Nation in Kenya, the IoL online news and the Daily Post of Nigeria. He is the organiser of the African Communications Week in SA and the BRICS MEDIA FORUM 2023.

Independent German journalist, author and publisher of the German-language website Anti-Spiegel and the Russian-language Rupor News.
Since the beginning of the special military operation, Thomas has been covering events in Donbass and the new Russian regions. His reporting focuses on military action and the daily life of volunteer corps on the front lines.
He regularly provides expert commentary for TV channels.