A Georgian editor jailed after slapping a police chief during a protest has been named one of six winners of Europe’s Free Media Award, given by Norway’s Fritt Ord Foundation and Germany’s ZEIT Stiftung Bucerius.

Mzia Amaghlobeli, founder of the outlets Netgazeti and Batumelebi, has become a symbol of Georgia’s embattled independent press. She was sentenced in August to two years in prison for striking a senior police officer in the face during an opposition protest in January, an incident caught on camera. Amaghlobeli has argued she was provoked, and due to the circumstances and the severity of her sentencing, opposition groups consider the case a political setup and part of a wider crackdown on government critics.

Amaghlobeli co-founded the newspaper Batumelebi, which was awarded the Free Media Award by Fritt Ord in 2009. The foundations said they were honoring her now for her 25 years of dedication to journalistic ethics and integrity. They also noted she is the first female journalist in Georgia to be jailed on what rights groups describe as politically motivated charges since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Earlier this year, she staged a 38-day hunger strike in protest, which left her in fragile health.

Other Free Media Award winners include Ukraine’s Gwara Media, Hungary’s Direkt36, Russian photojournalist Alexandra Astakhova, Belarus’s Investigative Center, and Azerbaijani journalist Nargiz Absalomova. The organizers said the prize recognizes “heroic investigative journalism” carried out under harsh conditions.