Portrayal of Iranian rooftop protest wins World Press Photo

Italian freelance photographer Pietro Masturzo won the 2009 World Press Photo on Friday for a picture of protesting women shouting at each other from rooftops in Tehran, days after the controversial election in June last year.

The jury of the prestigious, annual photojournalism prize chose a photograph from Masturzo's series of subdued, sober and slightly mysterious pictures of the nightly protests.

"The photo shows the beginning of something, the beginning of a huge story," said jury chair Ayperi Karaduba Ecer. "It adds perspectives to news. It touches you both visually and emotionally, and my heart went out to it immediately."

"It is a very intimate picture. There is no big event going on, but you still sense there is something very particular and quite desperate in these lonely little people on the picture, fighting something you feel is much bigger," she said. "There is emotional quality to the picture, besides the story, that is also very, very strong."

In June last year, large protests broke out in Iran after incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared his election victory. As the baton-weilding paramilitary Baseej volunteer force chased protesters from the streets of Tehran, the capital's citizens protested from their rooftops every night. Ecer said Masturzo’s photo "adds layers to news".

As in the last couple of years, the World Press Photo jury chose a picture that did not portray the raw reality of war or human suffering. Last year, American Anthony Suau won with a black-and-white picture of a police man entering an abandoned house, an image of the foreclosures during the credit crisis. In 2006, American Spencer Platt told the story of the Israeli airstrike on Lebanon with a photograph of young residents driving through a shattered neighbourhood in a convertible while talking on their cell phones.

The World Press Photo Awards were awarded in ten categories on Friday. 63 photographers from 23 different countries were honoured.