Aprominent defender of inmates’ rights in Kazakhstan, who is himself imprisoned, has been awarded with the 18th Ludovic-Trarieux International Human Rights Prize. 

The prize committee announced on July 1 that the jury of 29 European lawyers had awarded the prize to Vadim Kuramshin.

The prize will be officially presented on December 5 in Paris.

Kuramshin was found guilty of extortion and sentenced to 12 years in prison in December 2012.

In August 2012, he had been sentenced to one year of limited movement on the same charges. After he participated in an OSCE conference in Europe, prosecutors ordered a retrial.

The Ludovic-Trarieux Human Rights Prize, created in 1984, is awarded each year to a lawyer for his or her contributions to the defense of human rights.

Nelson Mandela was the first recipient of the prize in 1985.

http://www.rferl.org/content/kazakhstan-lawyer-ludovic-trarieux-prize/25033211.html

Journalists, technologists and NGO, government and UN officials working in conflict zones can apply for a two-day workshop in New York.

The US Mission to the United Nations and the State Department’s Office of eDiplomacy are hosting TechCamp NYC: Protection Journalists in Conflict at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism.

During the workshop, participants will work in small group discussions, which will allow them to drill down into their unique challenges and spend time with technology experts who can walk them through possible tech solutions.

Participants will set the agenda, but possible topics include verifying sources, ensuring anonymity, secure info-sharing networks, coping with trauma and more.

Participation in the conference is free, and lunch will be provided for both days. Transportation and housing costs are not covered.

The number of spaces is limited. Apply by July 1.

For more information, click here: http://techcampglobal.org/nyc.php

DUSHANBE — In Tajikistan, a prominent, independent journalist has been arrested again and charged with soliciting bribes.

The Tajik Interior Ministry announced on June 26 that Muhammadyusuf Ismoilov was arrested earlier this week and accused of demanding bribes from two residents of the northern province of Sughd.

Ismoilov made headlines in 2010 after publishing his investigative reports about what he called a local prosecutor’s illegal activities.

He was then arrested and charged with libel and corruption.

Ismoilov spent 11 months in pretrial detention and was released in October 2011.

While in detention, a local court found him guilty and fined him the equivalent of $9,000.

Ismoilov’s lawyer told RFE/RL on June 26 that he needed to get better acquainted with his client’s case before making any comments on the arrest.

http://www.rferl.org/content/tajikistan-journalist/25028410.html

Online journalists, digital news organizations and students worldwide can apply for an award.

The Online News Association (ONA) and the University of Miami School of Communication are accepting entries for the 2013 Online Journalism Awards recognizing excellence in digital reporting.

This year, ONA is incorporating non-English entries into all categories, which include: breaking news, planned news/events, explanatory reporting, topical reporting, online commentary, feature, student projects, technical innovation, innovative investigative journalism, watchdog journalism, public service and general excellence in online journalism.

Of the 29 awards, nine offer a total of US$37,500 in prize money, including a new US$5,000 award honoring the best in watchdog journalism.

Awards will be given at the Online News Association Conference & Awards Banquet in Atlanta, Georgia. The OJAs, launched in 2000, are the only comprehensive set of journalism prizes honoring excellence in digital journalism.

The entry fee is US$100 for ONA members, US$175 for non-members, US$15 for student members and US$50 for student non-members.

Entries published between June 16, 2012, and June 15, 2013 are eligible. Apply by June 28.

For more information, click here: http://journalists.org/awards/

Journalists and bloggers interested in advancing their knowledge of the sciences can apply.

The Falling Walls Foundation seeks candidates with at least three years professional journalism or blogging experience in which they have written about science.

The fellows will get the opportunity to visit the Falling Walls Lab and attend the Falling Walls Conference in November in Berlin.

The fellowship includes travel expenses, hotel room for three nights and conference fees.

Applicants must complete the online form and submit two work samples together with a cover letter.

The deadline to apply is September 15.

For more information, click here: http://falling-walls.com/press/fellowship/

Photographers with less than five years of experience with portrait photography, regardless of age, can submit their work.

The Contour by Getty Images Portrait Prize will award a US$10,000 grant to one photographer. The winning photographer’s work will be announced with a Getty Images press release, exhibited at the Polka Galerie in Paris in October 2013 and displayed on the Getty Images grants website.

Applicants must submit 10-20 images from their portrait work (either individual images or a series) along with a biography, brief explanation of their approach to portraiture and description of what they would like to accomplish in their careers (each in 1,000 words or less).

Submit your work by Aug. 5.

For more information, click here: http://imagery.gettyimages.com/getty_images_grants/Portrait.html

More than 80 journalists forced to flee abroad in 2012

To mark World Refugee Day today, Reporters Without Borders is publishing the accounts of journalists who had to flee abroad to escape threats to their safety. Syrians, Iranians, Eritreans, Somalis and Sri Lankans – they remind us that reporting the news is a dangerous profession, one that can get you killed or imprisoned. More than 80 journalists fled their country in 2012 to escape arbitrary rule, imminent imprisonment, persecutions and threats. Others have continued to flee abroad in the first half of 2013. They need our help more than ever.

Dozens of journalists have had to flee the civil war in Syria, where they are very exposed to the violence and are targeted by a government bent on hiding the scale of his human rights violations from the rest of the world.

The exodus continues in Iran. More than 200 journalists have fled the country in the four years since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s reelection. And the regime is even trying to pressure media beyond its borders. The June 2013 presidential election saw threats and intimidation of the families in Iran of journalists working abroad.

Journalists flee for their lives from Somalia to escape the violence of Al-Shabaab’s militiamen. Journalists flee into exile from Eritrea to escape an arbitrary and despotic regime. Journalists who refuse to toe the editorial line imposed by the government in Sri Lanka often have to flee abroad when the threats get serious.

RWB’s support for journalists who flee abroad

Flight into exile rarely means the end of threats and difficulties. Journalists fleeing abroad usually find themselves stuck in countries that neighbour their own. The borders are easily crossed by representatives of the regime they are trying to escape. Many exile journalists report being watched or threatened by embassy officials or government agents from their country of origin.

Deprived of income after fleeing abroad and often subjected to various financial sanctions before they flee, these journalists are usually in a desperate financial situation that increases the dangers to which they are exposed and adds to their sense of insecurity.

Aware of the vulnerability of these news providers, who have been hounded just for trying to shed light on the everyday reality of life for their fellow citizens, Reporters Without Borders is tireless in its effort to provide them with support.

Of the approximately 60 financial grants Reporters Without Borders has disbursed since the start of 2013, half has been awarded to exile journalists. Three quarters of the grants awarded to journalists from the Middle East have gone to Syrian exile journalists. Reporters Without Borders helps them to cover their basic living expenses or pay their airfare to a safer country.

The Reporters Without Borders Assistance Desk has written more than 80 letters since the start of the year. Almost all of them were to help exile journalists by pressing for a rapid and adequate response from the authorities who are supposed to provide them with international protection.

http://20june.rsf.org/

On the eve of World Refugee Day, Reporters Without Borders is alerting United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres to the need to provide refugee journalists with better protection and is publishing an updated version of its guide for journalists who are forced to flee into exile.

Around 80 journalists fled abroad in 2011 to escape the fate reserved for them by governments hostile to freedom of information. The exodus is continuing this year. Dozens of Syrian, Iranian, Somali and Eritrean journalists have had to flee their countries in the past six months.

Faced by the probability of imminent arrest, physical violence, harassment or even murder, these men and women have had to abandon family, friends and colleagues in a quest for greater security.

Because of a lack of funds or because they departed in haste, they often end up being stranded in neighbouring countries that are accessible to refugees but also to the agents of the governments they are fleeing. As a result, their safety is far from being assured in these countries of initial refuge.

Reporters Without Borders wrote to UN High Commissioner for Refugees Guterres on 30 May alerting him to the situation of refugee journalists in countries such as Turkey, Uganda and Kenya. Today, we are releasing the letter and the recommendations it contains.

We call on UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, to establish an alert mechanism with a designated referral officer within each of its local offices so that cases involving refugee journalists and human rights activists can be identified and handled more quickly because they are particularly exposed to danger.

We also urge the High Commissioner to ensure that refugee journalists and human rights activists get better access to appropriate individual protection, to the emergency resettlement process and to the UN’s mechanism for temporary evacuation to a safe third country.

Finally, Reporters Without Borders is convinced that UN member states have a duty to help protect journalists who are forced to flee into exile because of their work. It therefore urges Guterres to publicly acknowledge that the UN’s traditional protection procedure is not appropriate for refugee journalists and human rights activists, who continue to be in danger in countries of initial refuge, and to urge member states to take the necessary action.

The latest version of the Guide for journalists who flee into exile, which Reporters Without Borders first published in 2009, contains some 30 pages of advice for refugee journalists about UNHCR protection procedures and seeking asylum in Europe and North America. Journalists who have had to flee their country will find information, tips and contacts that will help to guide and assist them during the long and difficult process of starting a new life.

Copy of the letter sent by Reporters Without Borders to United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres

Mr. António Guterres
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees UNHCR
PO Box 2500
CH-1211 Geneva 2
Switzerland

Paris, 30 May 2012

Urgent: Situation of asylum-seeking journalists in transit countries

Dear High Commissioner,

Reporters Without Borders, the leading international NGO defending freedom of information, is extremely concerned about the situation of journalists who apply to UNHCR for protection in the first country they reach after fleeing their own country.

By providing information about the situation of their fellow citizens, by interviewing government opponents, and by drawing attention to human rights violations, corruption and misrule, journalists attract the hostility of regimes and influential groups that do not tolerate freely reported news and information.

Because of their work, journalists are exposed to serious reprisals. Many are forced to flee abroad to escape physical violence, threats, arrests and arbitrary jail sentences. Journalists are easy to identify because they sign articles, appear on TV and speak on the radio. When they flee to a nearby country and register with UNHCR, they continue to be at the mercy of the regimes they are trying to escape because their names, faces and voices are known.

This was seen when Eritrean journalist Jamal Osman Hamad was arrested in Khartoum on 24 October 2011, less than a week after Eritrean President Issaias Afeworki visited his Sudanese counterpart, and 300 Eritrean citizens were deported to their country of origin without UNHCR being able to examine their cases.

Our concern increased when Rwandan journalist Charles Ingabire was gunned down in Kampala on 30 November 2011 in very unclear circumstances. Reporters Without Borders is convinced that an act of political revenge cannot be ruled out.

It is clear that the Rwandan, Eritrean, Ethiopian and Iranian governments, like Somalia’s Al-Shabaab and Latin America’s drug traffickers, have an ability to do harm that reaches well beyond their own borders.

It must however be recognized that, as things stand, there is no adequate mechanism for protecting asylum-seeking journalists (and other news providers), who are all, by the nature of their work, also human rights defenders. Reporters Without Borders would therefore to like propose that local UNHCR offices adopt the following dedicated procedures for the protection of journalists.

Reporters Without Borders asks UNHCR to establish an alert mechanism with a designated referral officer within each of its local offices so that cases of persons who are in particular danger can be identified and handled more quickly. As Reporters Without Borders is in regular contact with journalists who have decided to flee abroad to safeguard their safety and freedom, and as it systematically conducts an investigation whenever it is contacted by a journalist seeking its protection, it is in a position to act as guarantor of the identity and background of journalists who approach UNHCR protection officers.

Adequate safety measures must also be adopted for refugee journalists (and other human rights defenders) including a programme of urban shelters (away from the regular refugee camps), safehouses, and emergency alert and protection mechanisms. Reporters Without Borders has been helping refugee journalists for more than 20 years but, although we are in constant contact with them and give them advice and guidance, we do not have the human and financial resources to enable them to meet their daily needs, including their security needs. It is vital that journalists should have greater access to the emergency resettlement process and to the UN’s mechanism for temporary evacuation to a safe third country. UNHCR should work to obtain greater participation in these programmes by countries that can offer safe refuge.

Reporters Without Borders also urges the United Nations to publicly acknowledge that its traditional protection procedure is not appropriate for threatened journalists and to ask member states to help to make up for the shortcomings. This would enable UNHCR to overcome the culpable inaction of certain western government that use the overall quota as an excuse for doing nothing, although more than 260 journalists have been killed in connection with their work in the past five years and 154 are currently detained.

Our organization very much hopes that you will come out in favour of specific and more personalized treatment of resettlement requests by journalists and human rights defenders who are threatened in transit countries. We also hope that our recommendations will help to bring about a more general overhaul of UNHCR procedures.

We stand ready to provide you with any additional information and to meet with you to discuss these recommendations further. Sincerely,

Olivier Basille
Director General

http://en.rsf.org/refugee-journalists-are-19-06-2012,42818.html

To mark World Refugee Day on 20 June, Reporters Without Borders is paying tribute to those journalists who manage to continue working as journalists after being forced to flee their country. By so doing, they defy those who tried to silence them.

Journalists from many different countries were interviewed for the report, entitled Forced to flee but not silenced – Exile media fight on. Whether from Burma, Sri Lanka, Rwanda or Cuba, their accounts describe the plight of their fellow journalists and the violation of rights and freedom in their country. Their personal stories are often secondary.

These journalists feel compelled to keep reporting, in order to prevent a veil of silence from being drawn over their country, in order to thwart the press freedom predators who took pleasure in forcing them to flee abroad.

Reporters Without Borders is proud of the fact that it has been able to support some of the initiatives of these exile journalists, whether by providing funding or my helping to make others aware of what they are saying.

This report also includes a summary of what the Reporters Without Borders Assistance Desks in Paris and Berlin have done so far this year.

http://en.rsf.org/forced-to-flee-but-not-silenced-17-06-2011,40475.html