Honouring the Best Who Cover the Worst

"The journey towards full freedom of expression is long and it is difficult," Al-Askary told IPS.

Al-Askary was in Toronto Wednesday to receive one of this year's three International Press Freedom Awards from the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE).

Colombian print and television journalist Hollman Morris and Pakistani writer and photographer Hayat Ullah Khan were the other award recipients.

Khan's family will receive the 3,000-dollar award because he was abducted on Dec. 5, 2005. His body was found in North Waziristan near Afghanistan on Jun. 16 this year. He had been handcuffed and shot in the head. Pakistani intelligence services are suspected since Khan was kidnapped four days after reporting on and releasing photos about a missile attack on North Waziristan by what may have been a U.S. drone.

"This year's winners come from some of the toughest regions in which to practice journalism," said chair of the awards committee, Carol Off. "They are truly remarkable people, committed to speaking out and telling the stories of the world's most vulnerable citizens."

CJFE promotes and defends free expression and press freedom and grants thousands of dollars to aid persecuted journalists in Latin America, Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe.

{josquote}Journalists are often the only way indigenous, campesinos and other oppressed people can have their voices heard, Hollman Morris said in an interview through a translator{/josquote}.

"We should go where the most humble people are and give them their right to speak," he told IPS.

Morris has been a newspaper writer and editor and most recently director and producer of Contravia, a television news programme that traveled the country investigating atrocities committed by Colombia's right-wing paramilitaries and left-wing guerrillas.

"It is very difficult to practice this kind of journalism," he said. "There is intolerance, intimidation and threats."

Morris has been forced to go into hiding in Spain, received death threats, and was even criticised by Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, who erroneously suggested that he had advance word of a guerrilla attack on government troops. Uribe later quietly retracted his statement.

However, those personal fears pale in comparison to the fear of not telling the truth of what is really happening to people in his country, he said.

Contravia is no longer on the air, lacking funds and airspace. Colombia's television networks are dominated by two large private companies that fill the airwaves with soap operas and reality shows, he said.

"I cannot understand how a country with the worst human rights drama, 25 million poor people and three million displaced people, and there is no space for opinion or debate or documentaries in the media," Morris said. "Media has a social responsibility, especially considering the conditions under which we are living here."

North American media coverage of Colombia is little better, focusing almost entirely on the drug wars.

"I am constantly being asked about drug lords," Morris said. "There are far more spectacular -- and beautiful -- stories in Colombia to cover."

Abeer Al-Askary has fearlessly documented Egypt's under-reported human rights abuses. For the past five years, writing for independent newspapers and web sites, she has reported on state security officers within the Ministry of Interior who have supervised torture against activists and prisoners. Her writings have contributed to revealing fraud during the Egyptian elections, especially concerning the President Hosni Mubarak's son and the issue of bequeathing the presidency to him.

She was attacked on May 11, 2006, after covering protests organised in solidarity with Egyptian judges. Al-Askary was preparing to interview several lawyers and judges at the Bar Association when officers forcibly took her to the police station. She was accused of adultery and assaulted, her cellular telephone confiscated, and was told to stop writing. She was released three hours later with numerous bruises and a swollen eye.

She has also focused on the rights of the oppressed Egyptian Bahais at a time when extremist Islamic thought is widespread.

Al-Askary knows Egyptian authorities may be waiting for her to return.

"The job of journalism is fraught with trouble," she said. "It is the job of speaking the truth. And this is my duty and I wish to continue with it."

So far this year, 65 journalists have been killed and 131 imprisoned, according to Reporters Without Borders. In September, the International Federation of Journalists and a number of other press freedom and human rights groups launched a new global initiative aimed at reinforcing international efforts to make journalism safer around the world.

Source: IPS - Inter Press Service News Agency

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