Paris - The France-based media rights group Reporters Without Borders on Thursday named jailed Cuban journalist Ricardo Gonzalez Alfonso its 2008 Reporter of the Year.

The award was bestowed on the dissident Cuban "for helping an independent press to survive in Cuba," the group said on its web site.

Gonzalez was arrested in March 2003 along with 26 other dissident journalists and sentenced to 20 years in prison for "being in the pay of the United States" and "undermining Cuba's independence and territorial integrity."

Since being shut away in Havana's Combinado del Este prison in late 2004, he has suffered from a series of physical ailments, including hepatitis and haemorrhaging.

Born in 1950, Gonzalez began working for the independent news agency Cuba Press in 1995 and became Reporters Without Borders correspondent in 1998.

He and his friend Raul Rivero set up the Manuel Marquez Sterling Association in May 2001 to train Cuba9s independent journalists, who are often self-taught.

Reporters Without Borders also awarded its 2008 Media Prize to the North Korean journalists of Radio Free NK, the country's first dissident radio station. The journalists were cited for "their courage and determination."

In addition, two Burmese bloggers, Zarganar and Nay Phone Latt, were chosen joint winners in the group's Cyber-dissident category.

Known as the "Burmese Charlie Chaplin," Zarganar "defended human rights and denounced the military government9s abuses" in comic sketches and entries in the blog he had been keeping since August 2007. He was arrested in June of this year.

On November 10, the 28-year-old blogger Nay Phone Latt was sentenced by a special court to 20 years and six months in prison for violating the Electronics Act, which calls for severe penalties for those who use the internet to criticize the Burmese government. (dpa)