At a ceremony last night at the Royal Institution the annual awards, in their 11th year, recognised the work of Ibrahim Eissa, alongside others who shine a light on issues and stories across the world, often at great personal risk.
Eissa previously worked for newspaper al Dostour before he was reportedly sacked and had his talk show taken off the air, following a crackdown on the media in the lead-up to the parliamentary elections.
In a report on the winners Eissa is described as a "one-man baromater of Egypt's struggle for political and civic freedom". Upon accepting his award he reportedly said: "I consider this to be a prize for Tahrir Square".
Other awards include a new media prize, which was presented to winner TuniLeaks, a selection of the WikiLeaks diplomatic cables published by independent blog and parent site, Nawaat.
"This award is very important to us. It is given to us the very year we are celebrating the Tunisian revolution and seven years of our existence as a collective blog, which was censored from its launch by Ben Ali's regime," Sami Ben Gharbia, co-founder of Nawaat, is quoted in the release.
"The TuniLeaks cables revealed the extent of the corruption deeply entrenched in many aspects of Tunisian life," IoC reports.
"Despite attempts to block the site, news of the cables being released swiftly spread around the country and Nawaat helped informal media networks link communities that had been cut off by government censors."
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