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

In a statement on its website, Uzbekistan’s Culture and Sports Ministry has announced a ban on «meaningless» songs that fail to «praise the motherland.»

In a rather insensitively worded ruling, the music of pop groups Mango and Ummon and singers Dilfuza Rahimova, Otabek Mutalhojaev, and Dilshod Rakhmonov were condemned as being «meaningless from musical and lyrical standpoints.» (Ouch!)

They were stripped of their performing licenses, which are issued by an agency within the ministry, Uzbeknavo, and which are needed in order to perform in public in Uzbekistan.

Says the ministry:

Seven other performers were issued «harsh warnings» and given a deadline of July 1 to eliminate what the ministry euphemistically calls their «creative shortcomings.»

Unsurprisingly, the ruling does not apply to the musical oeuvre of the Uzbek pop star Googoosha, also known as Gulnara Karimova, also known as the daughter of authoritarian Uzbek President Islam Karimov, whose most recent music video, «How Dare,» features her gyrating sexily to a thumping beat in front of a half-naked man in a chair who appears to be in some sort of distress.

Perhaps Mango and Ummon and all the others should count their blessings, though. As RIA Novosti points out:

— Grant Podelco

http://www.rferl.org/content/uzbekistan-meaningless-pop-songs/25023250.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

Beginning journalists seeking digital skills can take these free courses.

MulinBlog Online J-School is offering two massive open online classes (MOOCs) over the summer: Writing for the Web, June 10 – July 7, and Audio Slideshow Storytelling, July 1 – Aug 10.

The school is a free, open, online program for people of all backgrounds, especially those who are «absolute beginners,» seeking Web-based training in digital skills.

All courses are open to anyone who has an Internet connection.

For more information, click here: http://www.mulinblog.com/mulinblog-online-j-school-course-schedule/

Aspiring journalists can participate in a film festival.

PLURAL+ invites video makers 9 to 25 years old to submit short clips that address migration, diversity and social inclusion issues. Partners include the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations and the International Organization for Migration.

Recognizing youth as powerful agents of social change in a world often characterized by intolerance and cultural and religious divisions, PLURAL+ invites youth to address key challenges related to migrant integration, inclusiveness, identity, diversity, human rights and social cohesiveness, both at local and global levels.

There will be three winners selected from the three age categories (9-12, 13-17, 18-25) and each winner will be flown to New York in December to present their video at the PLURAL+ 2013 Awards Ceremony.

See the winning videos of the 2012 contest here.

The deadline for submissions is June 30.

For more information, click here: http://pluralplus.unaoc.org/

Journalists of any nationality from print, Web, photo, TV or radio can apply.

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit, the Forum of Environmental Journalists in India and The Third Pole are seeking entries from journalists reporting on environmental issues in India.

The entries should deal with the protection and management of air, water, soil and other resources. The entries can also relate to how cities and industries are coping with climate change. Entries with positive examples, opportunities and solutions are encouraged and should be clearly associated to India.

The entries should have been published/broadcast between July 1, 2012 and June 30, 2013, and must be accompanied by an endorsement letter from the editor/news editor of the media house in which the respective report has been published. Entries in languages other than English should be accompanied by an English summary of about 500 words.

There will be a first and second prize in each of the five categories — print, web, photo, TV and radio. The first prize in each category is $50,000 Indian Rupees (US$862) and the second prize is $30,000 Indian Rupees (US$516).

The winner in the print media category will participate in a two-week workshop on advanced environmental reporting, organized by Deutsche Welle Academy in Warsaw.

The deadline is June 30.

For more information, click here: http://www.igep.in/e48093/e55248/

Journalists who want to create innovative approaches to social issues can apply for this fellowship.

The Open Society Fellowship seeks “idea entrepreneurs” from across the world who aim to challenge conventional wisdom and are committed to achieving democracy and accountability.

Project themes should cut across at least two areas of interest to the Open Society Foundations. Among these are human rights, government transparency, access to information and to justice, and the promotion of civil society and social inclusion.

Applicants should be fluent in English and possess a deep understanding of their chosen subject, along with a track record of professional accomplishment.

The application deadline is August 1.

For more information, click here: http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/grants/open-society-fellowship