Peter Greste

Professor Peter Greste is an Australian-born journalist, author, media freedom activist and academic. He is a founding member of the advocacy group, the Alliance for Journalists Freedom, and the UNESCO Chair in Journalism and Communication at the University of Queensland.

 Before joining the university in January 2018, he spent 25 years as a foreign correspondent, starting with the civil war in Yugoslavia and elections in South Africa as a freelance reporter in the early 90’s, before joining the BBC as its Afghanistan correspondent in 1995. He went on to cover Latin America, the Middle East and Africa for the BBC. 

 He hit the headlines himself in December 2013, when he and two colleagues were arrested in Cairo on terrorism charges. They were convicted and sentenced to seven years in a case that drew international condemnation as an attack on press freedom. 

 Under pressure, Professor Greste was released and he went on to become a champion of press freedom around the world. His stance has earned him numerous international awards, including the the Australian Human Rights Commission Medal, the RSL’s 2016 ANZAC Peace Prize, and the Australian Press Council’s 2018 Press Freedom award.