News

VII's Questions Without Answers: An evolving legacy

2012-05-23T10:40:43Z

By Merryn Johnson

Photography agency VII’s latest publication, Questions Without Answers, not only spans over two decades of world history, but it also spans the evolution of photojournalism and the photographers who have pioneered their own take on the industry.

The book reflects the independence that the VII founders established for themselves when they set up their agency in 2001 – the ability to change and develop and evolve. Three out of the original seven founding members were on the panel for Monday's event, Gary Knight, Christopher Morris and John Stanmeyer. All have been able to escape the constraints of the major agency, setting their own agenda and timetables.

Three years in the making, Questions Without Answers covers a broad spectrum of reportage. Chairing the event, Alexia Singh, Editor-in-Charge of the Wider Image Desk at Thompson Reuters, remarked on the contrast of Gary Knight’s coverage in Iraq – “a terrifying blood, sweat and tears story” – to his slower paced, contemplative documentation of poverty in India.

Knight said: “I got a lot more than I bargained for. . . . I really grew a little tired of the violence and I started to think of ways to move away from that kind of photography.”

But non-conflict work also brings its horrors. In 2004, John Stanmeyer’s reached the tsunami-torn shores of Sri Lanka within 24 hours of the waves hitting, before moving on the cover the impact in Aceh.

“I’ve been in a lot of natural disasters, of course a lot of conflicts, but natural disasters have a different psychological effect,” said Stanmeyer. “In a natural disaster there is no one to blame. Who are you going to blame? Are you going to blame God? Allah? Buddha? It was a calamity of a scope that is beyond human scale. It was beyond photography, it was beyond a camera, it was beyond me.”

Christopher Morris has also made a move from conflict photography, which he initially considered “the ultimate in photography – man trying to kill another man – the ultimate evil in humanity”. But that move away from conflict photography has allowed him closer focus on the decision makers:

“For me it’s fascinating to cover politics because you cover conflict all your life and these are the people that actually carry it through, these are the people that make the decisions.”

The agency seems to have created the space for its members to explore the space that surrounds the actions of war and conflict. The fourth panellist, Lynsey Addriano, said that she was always drawn to “the issues surrounding war – on the margins”.

Addriano is one of the seven women who now make up the agency of 23, helping to tip the scales in this once male-dominated industry. Admitting that the work can be “physically gruelling and emotionally draining”, she said that a person’s reactions depend on their own sensitivities: “It doesn’t matter if you’re a man or a woman.”

Knight expanded on this point:

“Too much can be made of [the gender issue] – they’re out there and they’re doing it, and they’re doing it very, very well. . . . Over the course of my career, you see many, many more women photographing, one of the problems is you don’t have many ethnicities photographing.”

To try and rectify this imbalance, VII launched a mentor programme to try and encourage photojournalism globally, giving budding photographers a chance to develop and find their own voice and audience.

In Stanmeyer’s words, this is the kind of “empowerment” that VII has brought to its members, a freedom to act independently, which Knight likened to the lunatics taking over the asylum. But Questions Without Answers is a testament to the lunatics’ success. “The challenge now,” said Knight, “is building something that will last . . . a legacy.”

Reporting Somalia: Expanding the scope of the media's eye?

2012-05-18T12:30:59Z

When you think of Somalia, what comes to mind?

Conflict? Pirates? Refugees? Poverty?

Somalia is still a dangerous place for journalists to operate: according to the Committee to Protect Journalists five journalists have been killed there this year.

But improvements in the security situation are offering new opportunities to access stories that may have been too risky to cover in recent years.

Yesterday, I headed along to a seminar at the Dart Center to discuss how Somalia is represented in the media. The informal meeting allowed journalists and other interested observers to share their experiences and grapple with the challenges and opportunities of reporting from the East African country.

The award winning Somali reporter Jamal Osman helped kickstart debate by highlighting a number of weaknesses with journalism from Somalia.

He suggested that a lot of local Somali journalists are young and have not always had access to education as many grew up during Somalia's civil war after 1991.

He said they do not always "think responsibly" and are under both conscious and unconscious pressure to report stories in the interests of their clan. He believed reporters would benefit from more education in the ethics and principles of journalism.

He also noted that because "money is tight" journalists are understandably likely to value stories for their economic worth rather than their public value - a problem that is far from unique to Somalia.

Turning his attention to international media coverage, Osman argued that journalists often misunderstand the intricacies of clan loyalties, inaccurately portraying conflict in Somalia within the framework of "good vs evil".

As an example, he cited the fact that Somali officials speak to members of the insurgent Al Shabaab group because of shared family and clan ties.

Osman made a strong appeal for independent journalism and was concerned about embedding with other organisations including African Union troops as part of the mission in Somalia (AMISOM) and aid agencies.

Al Jazeera English's Juliana Ruhfus pointed out that obtaining secure access to Somalia remains a problem for international media organisations. She argued, however, that the cultivation of good local contacts was a starting point for more "human stories", "analysis", "investigative pieces" and "meaningful long form coverage that goes beyond news".

Participants emphasised that there were plenty of fascinating stories waiting to be told outside a media narrative which emphasises poverty, conflict and piracy.

Mary Harper, BBC World Service Africa Editor and author of Getting Somalia Wrong offered some examples including the export trade in livestock and the discovery of oil reserves.

One useful suggestion which came up at the seminar was the possibility of creating some form of media monitoring of output related to Somalia after a number of journalists present had expressed their concern at coverage of the country in recent TV documentaries.

Photo: UNICEF/Iman Morooka

Sri Lanka: reconciliation and justice

2012-05-17T19:44:50Z

By Rosie Scammell

Epitomising the troubled state of Sri Lanka post-conflict, an impassioned panel spent Wednesday night disputing the truth. Facing an equally ardent audience, they proved that the country has a long way to go before reconciliation will become a reality.

Chaired by BBC Hardtalk’s Stephen Sackur – who summarised the evening’s topic as “highly contentious [and] still hugely controversial” – the discussion first focused on two films broadcast by Channel 4: Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields and Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields: War Crimes Unpunished. Callum Macrae, director of both, clashed repeatedly with Professor Rajiva Wijesinha MP, government advisor on reconciliation who dismissed Channel 4’s work as illegitimate and “sordid.”

Wijesinha stated that while the film was not necessarily false, he believed it to have been "doctored", although did at times direct his criticism at an earlier Channel 4 news item rather than the films under debate. Macrae rejected the suggestion that he had been an apologist for the Tamil Tigers (LTTE) as “nonsense”, and was later backed by an audience member who described a “very clever propaganda film [by the government] refuting the Channel 4 film" as “an excellent piece of editing.”

Yolanda Foster, Amnesty International's Sri Lanka researcher, weighed into the debate by describing the government’s “merely cosmetic” act of lifting the state of emergency last year, and recounted ongoing disappearances and systematic torture. Foster served as a voice of calm in the panel – although criticised by Wijesinha as “avenging”, her measured tone helped her avoid heckles steeped on other panellists.

In December, Sri Lanka’s Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission released a report on atrocities committed during the civil war. Foster said on careful reading the report was "good", although pushed for the government to move forward with the Commission’s recommendations.

While the panellists failed to agree on the portrayal of war crimes by media and human rights groups, they broadly stood for legal remedies. Wijesinha deflected a question from Sackur about whether anyone had been prosecuted for wartime atrocities, but stated clearly that he was frustrated by delays in pushing the judicial process forward.

Arun Thambimuttu, a Tamil political activist, argued that atrocities were widespread over a 30 year period rather than just a few months, and committed by all sides. Recognising this, Jan Jananayagam, spokesperson for Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), stated that prosecutions must cover the breadth of the war:

“The judiciary has failed. I don’t agree that the government has an opt-out clause; that because they didn’t deliver justice for 30 years they won’t do it now.”

The international community has taken a much lesser role in post-conflict resolution and by all accounts momentum from within Sri Lanka seemed lacking.

“The international law which governs the behaviour of all governments around the world applies to Colombo, and that is something we cannot escape from,”

Sackur reminded Wijesinha, as tempers seethed throughout the room.

After two hours, a ceasefire was called on the divided panel. One audience member summarised the withering hope of reconciliation:

“If this is the reaction you get sitting in London; what chance do you have?”

Watch the full event here:

Is it time for a global conversation on free speech?

2012-05-15T21:54:00Z

By Helena Williams

Social media. Free speech. Democracy. These were the buzzwords of 2011, where international movements like the Arab Spring were said to have been fuelled by the power to communicate with one another without hindrance.

The year of unrest has put the spotlight on the role of the internet and social media in challenging power elites and their capacity to control what the outside world sees. But while the West praises ‘pro-democracy’ movements in Arab countries and their use of social media, Westerners face greater surveillance in the name of security, including threats of increased controls in the wake of the London riots.

“We’re becoming neighbours with each other,” said Timothy Garton Ash, director of the Free Speech Debate, a multi-lingual online platform for discussing freedom of expression which was launched in January 2012:

“The old ways of thinking about free speech - when in Rome, do as the Romans do - breaks down. But China and Iran do try to reassert their control over the internet, over the control of ideas."
“We have to have a global conversation about what should be the norms for freedom of expression.”

He was joined by Marie Gillespie, Professor of Sociology at The Open University and Co-Director of the Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change; Khaled Fahmy, professor and chair of the American University in Cairo’s Department of History; Kirsty Hughes, the Chief Executive of freedom of expression NGO Index on Censorship; to discuss what the historian and commentator has set out as the first principle of free speech: That all human beings must be free and able to express themselves, and to receive and impart information and ideas, regardless of frontiers:

“In this brave new world, private powers are at least as important as public powers. Facebook as a country would be the third largest country in the world. What Google does is more important than what Germany does.
“But they set rules without any democratic process. The internet also allows for new self-governing communities” said Garton Ash.

The highly academic debate – which some members of the audience dubbed “far too academic” and “Western” to be applied in actuality across the world – explored the pros and cons of Garton Ash’s ideal, outlined in ten draft principles supposed to be the 'rules of thumb' of free speech.

But Fahmy emphasised that the Egyptian revolution had “open access to information” at its core:

“It definitely isn’t a revolution of the poor and hungry – that might be just one dimension,” he said. “The need to inform was central in the revolution. We are in the middle of it.”

“It is not Islamists that pose the most serious threats to freedom of information. It is the military and all that is attached to it. It is the military we are fighting and the national security we are trying to challenge.”

But the ideals of equality and freedom of expression were brought into question by Gillespie, whose research suggested that structures of inequality found in reality are replicated in the media:

“Are we really all neighbours? The structure of inequalities that exist in the world are replicated and intensified online. It is important to think about who is talking and who, most importantly, is listening.”

Another blow to Garton Ash’s project was dealt by Hughes, who said that a global code as is outlined in the Free Speech Debate project could open up freedom of expression to government interference and top down control – which would undermine the idea completely:

“Do we need a global code? No, we have the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Codes open up government interference and topdown control. It can lead to self-censorship.”

“But we still need to fight for freedom of expression,” she added. “Let’s have a conversation but not a code.”

Diverse voices explored and expressed the pros and cons of working towards such an ideal – and so in a sense, demonstrated Garton Ash’s project in action.

“We have to move from purely western universalism to a more universal universalism,” said Garton Ash:

“The only way to do that is to put your own propositions on the table and be genuinely open to what someone in China, or Egypt, would say in response.”

Horst Faas, photographer whose images defined the Vietnam War

2012-05-11T11:50:19Z

Legendary photographer Horst Faas who was responsible for some of the most memorable photographs of the Vietnam war and has died aged 79 will be remembered warmly at the Frontline Club.

Having won a Pulitzer Prize in 1965 for his unflinching images of the conflict in Vietnam, as AP's picture editor he was responsible for the publication of two of the most abiding images of the conflict - the notorious picture of the "Saigon Execution" by Eddie Adams and Nick Ut's "Napalm Girl”

During his last visit to the Club in 2007 it was noted that "old friends and competitive rivals of Horst Faas need not worry that he's lost any of his wit, cantankerous behaviour, and trenchant, often controversial views about photojournalism and the world of media".

A members-only reception was held for Horst Faas and there was also a public event, which was held in the Club restaurant.

Neither event was filmed, but you can read about his appearance at Frontline Club on our website. If you have any memories of Horst Faas - either of that night or of working with him, we would like to hear from you.

Alan Cowell, 'The Paris Correspondent'

2012-05-10T18:02:22Z

By Thomas Lowe

How to send stories by carrier pigeon, when to run when you are under fire and the best way to brush off tweets were amongst titbits of information from Alan Cowell’s discussion of his new book ‘The Paris Correspondent.'

Cowell has long been a correspondent with the New York Times, and before that worked for Reuters. This is his third book.

In discussion with Charles Glass, freelance writer and former chief Middle East correspondent with ABC News in Beirut, Cowell says that reporting and producing news has changed for good. The book’s two male protagonists grapple with the fast pace of this change in the news industry. Cowell reads an excerpt:

"News men and newswomen were going down with the ships on which they had once sailed the kindly oceans of expense account lunches, five-star hotels and mortal peril. Print, that great, gorgeous messy alchemy of ink and hot type and whirring reals of paper and working stiffs in stained overalls was expiring, but not quite finished."

And as Cowell suggests, there is no reason not to reminisce a little about how things used to be:

“I remember in N'Djamena I was doing an interview with [President] Goukouni Oueddei… you had to go across the river to Cameroon to be able to find a phone… and on the bar there, there was a direct dial telephone… located next to an ice bucket where there was always a fresh bottle of champagne..."
“And there was also a curfew… and you had to be poled across the Chari River in a dugout canoe. And I remember saying to President Oueddei, “I’m sorry I’m going to have to cut this short because I have to catch the last pirogue before curfew.”

Those times have gone, says Cowell:

“If you say ‘Is that a more pleasant way of earning a living than slaving over a computer screen all day trying to bat off tweets like mosquitoes?’ Then yes, sure. But we can’t turn the clock back and what we have to do now is… bringing the standards and the values that have always made newspapers sell, into this new era.”

It was in Zimbabwe reporting shortly before independence, that Cowel was able to hone his carrier pigeon sending techniques. With no way to send his stories back he was given a huddle of “cooing carrier pigeons” by the last white mayor of Bulawayo and the last editor of the Bulawayo chronicle.

“…we didn’t know exactly how we were supposed to cope with them and he said look, Sid said “you hold the birds legs between those fingers, you put your thumb over the neck, you give it a little kiss and whisper something nice to it, then you loft it up to the air… And you write the story on a 30 packet of Madison cigarettes – there was a small bit of tissue paper inside and you could write 400 words of spidery script on it.

It is hard to avoid the feeling that news has definitely changed.

Exclusive Preview Screening: Europe's Last Dictator

2012-04-30T08:25:01Z

By Nicky Armstrong

Europe’s Last Dictator is a thought-provoking film about Belarus and its president Aleksander Lukashenko. The panel gathered to discuss Lukashenko’s brutal authoritarian style of ruling and what the future holds for Belarusians under a state that actively carries out torture, state-sponsored murder and kidnap as part of a crackdown of the opposition.

Stephen Sackur of the BBC’s Hard Talk was joined by directors Mathew Charles and Jean Passarelli and The Economist’s International editor, Edward Lucas. The panel was also comprised of two prominent activists who gave a very real insight into what is currentyl happening in Belarus.

Lukashenko has held power in Belarus for 18 years now. His power has turned more and more brutal. Freedom of speech is suppressed and the foreign media banned. Lukashenko himself describes his style of ruling as authoritarian:

“They tell me: you are a dictator. Am I a dictator? My position and the state will never allow me to become a dictator... But an authoritarian ruling style is characteristic of me, and I have always admitted it.” (Belarusian radio, August 2003)

The elections of December 2010 saw Belarusians rise up against the government after the elections were rigged, with Lukashenko declaring victory before the ballots had even closed. The crowd, chanting "leave office now" was brutally repressed by riot police and the KGB.

When asked by the audience how Lukashenko had been able to hold power for so long, Lucas responded by drawing similarities to Putin and his control of the media and in that respect Lukashenko did, and perhaps still does hold a chunk of the population that support him.

The panel touched on some of Lukashenko’s ‘bizarre & disturbed’ behavior and its relations with Russia. Described as the “badly behaved dog”, Russia needs Belarus to carry out activities that Russia wishes to be indirectly involved with.

The prevalence of the night seemed to be how the activists’ and political prisoners’ plights could be made more vocal and what the west can do to stop Lukashenko. Visa sanctions have already been placed on Lukashenko but not all the panel agreed that further economic sanctions would be the best way forward, Lucas’s opinion was that more sanctions was not for the best:

“I don’t want tough sanctions, I’m in favor of having as much co-operation as possible with the lower levels of the Belarusian government to show them the way the European Union works …Lukashenko’s narrative is very much they don’t need us and we're different anyways.”

The future of Belarus seems bleak, whilst the KGB continues to act as Lukashenko’s loyal dogs not much will change. Sackur asked the activists present at the event whether people would take to the streets again, the answer was a flat no.

Sandstorm: Libya in the Time of Revolution

2012-04-27T13:00:31Z

By Nicky Armstrong

Rasha Qandeel, a presenter with BBC Arabic was joined last night by Lindsey Hilsum to discuss her experiences in Libya and her new book Sandstorm Libya in the time of Revolution.

Hilsum, a International Editor at Channel 4 News, began by telling the audience the reason why she chose to write a book on the ‘bizarre’ dictator and the fall of his regime:

“One of the reasons I chose to write about Libya was because I felt like I sort of got it, I understood it, it wasn’t that difficult.”

She described with enthusiasm how it was one of the greatest times to be a journalist:

“It was about as good as it gets as a journalist, such fun, things are happening all around us, also quite often as a journalist people are trying to stop you finding out, these people were desperate for us to find things out, they were just so thrilled to have us there.”

Hilsum discussed personal accounts that she has written about in the book and gave an insight into why Gaddafi at the start of his 42-year dictatorship was loved by some:

“I think that one of the things about Gaddafi that is so interesting is that when he first came to power in 1969 lots of people did love him and that was because of the situation Libya was in, people thought that Gaddafi was their Nasser, and that was exactly the image he tried to portray.”

Despite Hilsum’s humorous anecdotes of asking a 17-year-old rebel fighter “does your mother know you’re here?” She also talked of events such as the 1996 massacre of Abu Salim prisoners:

“I learnt that this was a massacre where 1270 men had been herded into a courtyard in the prison and gunned down.”

NATO’s involvement in Libya will always be controversial. Inevitably the conversation turned to the reasons for their involvement and Libya’s oil. Upon discussing the casualties caused by the NATO strikes Hilsum expressed that she thought that there were far fewer casualties than Iraq or Kosovo and that the world was aware that this could turn into another Rwanda or Srebenica and the West had to act upon this.

Gaddafi’s vast, if somewhat strange, support for various groups that held anti-western sympathies such as the IRA, the Japanese Red Army and the Workers Revolutionary Party was all an attempt to overthrow the Western democracies. Gaddafi ploughed millions into Africa and was even titled the ‘King of Kings’ by traditional African leaders, money that Libya is doubtful to get back.

Hilsum ended the discussion making it clear that the future of Libya should be left to the Libyans to decide:

“In the end it is up to the Libyans, and if the secular parties do not get their act together and unite to make a proper political part that works, and the Islamic do, what are you going to do about it, It’s up to Libyans, I do feel that it is not for the West to intervene at this point."

Writing Libya's revolution

2012-04-27T10:04:51Z

By Richard Nield

Speaking to a packed Frontline Club on 26th April, Channel 4 News' International Editor Lindsey Hilsum shared a fascinating personal insight into the revolution in Libya last year that overthrew the regime of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi after 42 years in power.

In Hilsum's words, Libya was the "only true revolution of last year - where the whole apparatus of state was overturned."

The challenge now faced by Libya is that of building a new state in the wake of a leader who deliberately undermined the country's institutional development:

"The problem with Libya is that power is everywhere and nowhere," said Hilsum. "There are no strong institutions and no strong figures - and Libyans are allergic to strong political figures after Gaddafi."

Elections are scheduled to take place in June for a 200-member assembly that will form a new government and write a new constitution. But the creation of a new political reality in Libya will take years rather than months.

"Anyone who thinks you can go from 42 years of dictatorship to democracy overnight is dreaming," said Hilsum. "It's an extremely rocky path ahead."

As if to prove the point, within hours of Hilsum's talk, news emerged that the country's interim ruling council had fired the cabinet - just five months after it took office.

But despite the immense challenges that Libya now faces, Hilsum firmly believes that whatever the motivation for NATO's much-criticised intervention in Libya in March 2011, there is no doubt that it saved lives:

"I defy anyone who was in Benghazi that week to think that Gaddafi would not have come in and killed tens of thousands of people," she said.

Reading excerpts from her recently-published book, Sandstorm: Libya in the Time of Revolution, Hilsum spoke passionately about a Gaddafi regime, the brutality of which had been obscured by a decade of engagement with the West:

"We turned Gaddafi into a buffoon, and he was a buffoon, but we failed to acknowledge how terrible his regime was," she said.

Sandstorm was inspired by Tarek Ben Halim, a Libyan philanthropist and champion of democracy, who sadly died before he could witness the revolution.

It tells the story of many others like Tarek who in 2011 found the courage to challenge a regime that for 42 years had brutally crushed any opposition.

As well as shedding light on the 2011 revolution, Sandstorm also provides what Hilsum says is the first full account of the Abu Salim massacre in 1996, in which 1,270 people are believed to have been killed.

In one meeting recounted by Hilsum, a stooped, elderly man in a fez told her of the regular 600-mile journeys he made to the prison to deliver care packages to his brother-in-law. It was only after 14 years of such visits that the regime saw fit to tell him that his brother-in-law had long been dead.

It was these personal stories, told with humour and humility, that stood out from Hilsum's talk.

There is much "weeping and quarrelling" to come in Libya, said Hilsum. But after four decades of oppression, there is also great hope.

25 years of Panos Pictures: "It's about who you're working with and why"

2012-04-25T22:17:59Z

By Helena Williams

For 25 years photo agency Panos Pictures has been covering stories the mainstream media won’t. The commercial arm of the development NGO the Panos Institute (now Panos London) has had photographers documenting history as it unfolds, with a focus on social and development stories globally.

“We like to poke around in corners other people don’t go,” said Adrian Evans, Director of Panos Pictures.

“Photography is the idea of ‘don’t look over there, look over here’, and we’re not afraid to take a stand.

“We step aside from the main news and can pursue stories when they are not under the media spotlight. We cover stories we think are important.”

The work of Panos photographers Andrew Testa and Chloe Dewe Mathews was showcased at last night’s event and gave an insight into reporting for a unique organisation that operates somewhere in between the profit and the non-profit world.

Testa, who has covered a wide range of topics including the war in Kosovo, explained that staying in an area a little longer than most can sometimes produce the most fulfilling stories.

“In media terms, there is this attitude that once the UN goes in, everything finishes. I think staying longer in a place and covering the aftermath [is important].

"After the war in Kosovo there was an orgy of violence.”

The brutal war saw 5000 Kosovar Albanians go missing. Today, 1800 are still unaccounted for. It is these losses that gave birth to his collection, ‘The Missing’: yellowing photographs of those who disappeared, and portraits of the mothers who are unable to move on.

“It shows the passing of time, and how things are not being resolved in a quick way,” Testa explained.

“In Kosovo everything has moved on, but for these mothers they are frozen. For the soldiers who killed [the missing] it only took a second, for the mothers, time has stopped.”

Mathews initially operated closer to home, with her collections ‘Banger Boys of Britain’ – portraits of young Brits who make up and smash up their cars at the Destruction Derby, and ‘Hasidic Holiday’, which depicts orthodox Jews holidaying in Aberystwyth – before she traveled across Europe and Asia to capture China, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan through a lens.

In Azerbaijan, she documented locals plagued by cirrhosis and rheumatisms bathing in crude oil.

“It felt like the world had gone mad,” she said.

“With ideas of oil companies being corrupt and evil, to see it as a health remedy… well, a photograph can make you reassess your views.”

With budgets tightening and competition becoming increasingly fierce, Evans admitted that Panos are “always looking for funding” and photographers “have to support themselves.”

“Photographers are like little NGOs themselves, they have to be able to write proposals and go out there,” he said, adding that many photographers now look to displaying their work in galleries for a fee.

But the tireless work of Panos was summed up by award-winning photographer, Senior Lecturer in Photography at the University of the Arts and moderator Paul Lowe.

“Nowadays it’s not just about the photographs. It’s about who you’re working with and why.

“We communicate to the world our interest, our passions, our desires. I’d like to think Panos does this.”

A criminal fate in North Korea

2012-04-25T20:29:55Z

By Rosie Scammell

Shin Dong-Hyuk is the only known person born in a North Korean prison camp to escape. On Tuesday night he told a packed audience that they must help the 200,000 remaining:

“The first thing that I remember being told by the prison guard was that we were supposed to be dead a long time ago, but we were very lucky to have been granted another chance to live,” said Shin.

While information from the outside world has gradually filtered into North Korea, Shin was kept in ignorance, and felt no resentment:

“My fate was to live the life of a criminal, forever. I was never taught about the life outside of the prison camp, and the world in my thoughts consisted only of prison guards and prisoners.”

Journalist Blaine Harden, whose book Escape from Camp 14 tells Shin’s story, spoke of the “hideous cruelty” endured by Shin:

“His body is a map of the stories he tells. He was burnt on his back when he was 13, and has terrible scars. His legs are terribly scarred from electrical burns when he escaped through an electrical fence when he was 23. His middle finger is cut off, from when he dropped a sewing machine and was punished.”

The camps are used as “an instrument of terror”, Harden said, but also serve a second purpose:

“His parents were selected by the guards to breed, and he was bred very much like a farm animal, to be a slave in the camp. This is a story of a systematic dehumanisation that Shin brings to the world that no-one else has told.”

Shin’s upbringing by the guards was so carefully orchestrated that at the age of 13, he told them of his mother and brother’s talk of escape. The family were kept in an underground prison for seven months, before Shin’s mother was hung and his brother shot dead, in the execution ground he had first been taken at the age of four:

“When his mother was hung, she tried to catch his eye, and he refused to look at her,” Harden said, “He was angry with her because he thought she had betrayed him by talking about escape, by violating the camp rules – the only code of behaviour that he ever knew.”

It was only after crossing the North Korean border that Shin began to understand - and feel guilty about - the decision.

Shin said that while he is much better off physically since leaving Camp 14, he is under much greater stress mentally. He has learnt about the world’s history, and said he saw North Korea’s future at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC.

In publishing Escape from Camp 14, Shin hopes he can promote action that sets aside diplomatic spats:

“My wish is that this time the international community can prevent further genocide from happening. When I give interviews and talks like this, I have nightmares for about a week afterwards. But I feel that this is the only thing that I can do to help them.”

Behind the wall of secrecy: Escape from Camp 14

2012-04-25T10:48:19Z

By Jim Treadway

A packed house heard the touching and frightening story of Shin Dong-hyuk at the Frontline Club, told in Blaine Harden’s recently published book Escape from Camp 14: One man's remarkable odyssey from North Korea to freedom in the West.

Shin Dong-hyuk is one of only three known prisoners to have escaped from North Korean prison camps over the last half century (he did so five years ago), and he is the only escapee to have been born and spent his entire life in a camp. His parents were inmates paired up with the intent of breeding the most productive labor possible. A slim, strong-jawed 28-year-old about 5’7’’in height, Shin Dong-hyuk sat in a smart grey suit and shared his story with composure, nodding solemnly to each point his interpreter shared, his manner occasionally bubbling forth with a moving, energetic sincerity.

“You’re supposed to be dead,” he recalled guards telling him as grew up. The only redemption for criminals’ children, they told him, was hard work. “My only care was to meet quotas, with no mistakes,” he related, his foreshortened middle finger marking the time as a boy when he dropped a sewing machine and had the top of the finger amputated as punishment.

In camp, one thing motivated Shin Dong-hyuk above all else, food. Some corn and cabbage with a bit of salt comprised every meal of every day, and it turned him into “one of the mean people who betrayed others in camp… to get more food,” he admitted. In the end, his sole inspiration for daring to escape was “the thought of spending one single day with a full belly.”

The most disturbing memory Shin Dong-hyuk shared was of his mother’s death. Raised more by prison guards than by his parents, he had had it drilled into him that any mention of escape would be punished by execution, and even that failing to report others’ mentioning of escape would be punished with death as well.

One night while visiting his mother, a 13-year-old Shin Dong-hyuk overheard her and Xin’s brother mention escaping. His heart pounded at the sound of the word, and he urgently sought a friend’s council about what to do. They decided he should tell the authorities. He later watched from a crowd as his mother was hanged and his brother was shot.

Shin Dong-hyuk remembered his mother looking into the crowd and meeting his eyes before her hanging. He looked away, disgusted at her for betraying him by conspiring to escape. Only in the last few years has he begun to feel and try to reconcile a sense of guilt in the affair. But at the time, he had simply done what he had been taught his entire life was the right thing to do.

Shin Dong-hyuk finds purpose today in Christianity, sharing his story, and leading a monthly webcast attended by other North Korean refugees. When an audience member asked what he wanted for his country, he rejected the goal of democracy. “Every country claims to be a democracy,” he observed to an audience that chuckled in acknowledgment, “including North Korea.” He simply wished for freedom.

In a world where North Korean diplomats end meetings at any mention of these prison camps or human rights abuses in the country, the prospects of the 200,000 inmates that still live in these camps today, let alone the 24 million citizens for whom “even the slightest mistake” can land them in jail as well, appear dim.

Meanwhile, as Harden pointed out, an international media that fixates on goose-stepping soldiers, the “funny appearance” of Kim Jong-il or his son, or the latest round of nuclear weapon saber-rattling, and which passes these stories off as “the news” about North Korea, misses the reality and detail of millions of North Koreans suffering unimaginable degradation under totalitarianism.

Psychologists have noted a profound distrust and paranoia in North Korean refugees, a natural result of the lives they have been conditioned to live. Harden said that journalists have had an especially hard time encouraging North Koreans to share their experiences. Gradually, however, he and Shin Dong-hyuk have built each other’s trust. Harrowing as his story is, whether you believe it or not, what can be done to rectify it – as Shin Dong-hyuk put it a few times during the evening: “that is for you to decide."

Christie's New York to hold auction benefiting Anton Hammerl's family

2012-04-25T08:30:00Z

Friends of Anton is organizing the first auction of contemporary photojournalism prints ever held at Christie's on May 15th 2012 in New York to raise funds for the three young children of freelance photojournalist Anton Hammerl who was killed by the Libyan regime last year.

On April 5, 2011 South African freelance photographer Anton Hammerl went missing after coming under fire from Gaddafi loyalists. For 44 days his family was told repeatedly by the Libyan regime that he was alive and well. The truth is he was left to die in the desert. A campaign is currently underway to locate and recover his remains.

Antib Hammerl in Brega. Photo credit: Unaj Aranzadi.

2011 was one of the worst years for photojournalism with 3 deaths in addition to Anton's, followed by yet another in 2012. Besides raising funds for Anton's 11, 8 and 1 year-old children the evening aims to highlight the sacrifices made by photographers - particularly freelancers - who assume great risks to bring back images to agencies, magazines, publishers and readers worldwide, often with little backup.

Signed prints by some of the world's leading photographers - including Sebastiao Salgado, Alec Soth, Christopher Anderson, Ed Kashi, Yuri Kozyrev, Larry Fink, Lynsey Addario, Susan Meiselas, Ron Haviv, David Burnett, Joao Silva, Bruce Davidson, Greg Marinovich, Samuel Aranda, Roger Ballen and Vincent Laforet - will be auctioned off by Christie's Senior Vice President Lydia Fenet.

"The upcoming 'Friends of Anton' auction at Christie's is a milestone in contemporary photojournalism", says New York-based collector Alan L. Paris, "As a collector of photojournalism, I am particularly excited because this is the first ever auction dedicated to contemporary photojournalism. The contributors are top notch, the photos are of the highest quality, the material is fresh to the marketplace, and it is all for a very good cause."

Christie's is located at 20 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY 10020.
Auction: 6:30pm, May 15th, 2012.
501c(3) Reporters Without Borders is the fiscal sponsor of this all-volunteer evening, which is made possible by the generous assistance of Christie's, Innovative Philanthropy and Edelman.

Afghan Army Girls: Q&A with first-time director Lalage Snow

2012-04-24T16:00:00Z

by Charlene Rodrigues

The screening of Afghan Army girls ended with a roaring sound of applause at the Frontline Club yesterday evening. Lalage Snow, also a photojournalist, made her directing debut with a film beautifully weaved in stills and moving images to showcase the lives of women preparing for a life in the Afghan national army.

Focussing on the lives of three girls training in the army, Samiya, Homa and Zeinab, the film captured their individual personalities, following them on a ten week training course to an isolated military base in Kabul and into some of their homes.

Anyone who is remotely familiar with Afghan news and culture would know that staying away from home is taboo for women, and that this is a big step forward.

One member of the audience questioned if and whether this has had any impact.

Snow said,

"Lets not forget before the occupation of the Taliban, the Afghans used to employ at least 4,000 women in the army. Of course all this has been superimposed by ISAF and NATO lately in an effort to empower the women and the country.

All the training and classes take place in a compound. About the impact - I really don't have much of an idea now. Of course there are higher generals who are women but they still need to develop a better sense of authority without being trampled over by their male peers."

Many were curious to know about the reactions from fellow Afghan countrymen and women. Snow said:

"In Afghanistan, not many women are aware that women are being recruited for the armed forces. There is not much publicity about it. Not sure if this is a move by ISAF and NATO to superimpose women’s rights on top of the agenda. Female soldiers are being recruited for the army and the police force to conduct searches."

She added

"Can't speak for all but many of the men-folk are progressive and want a future that is sustainable. They want peace and stability."

While the film tackled many aspects of being a woman in the armed forces, many were still looking for answers as to what would happen when the international troops pull out.

Snow said:

“Well it is a mixed response; I have argued this over and over with my friends. Many think they would like the foreign forces to leave. Others think there is just going to be a civil war if that happens."

One audience member had the room in hysterics asking, "So can the women shoot?" To which Snow replied, jokingly "No."

As seen in the film, after graduation, no-one made it to the Afghan Air Force. "All of them were extremely proud and happy to have undergone this training except for one, Samiya," said Snow.

Twitter and the ethics of covering the Breivik trial

2012-04-18T10:15:21Z

There is a dilemma for journalists covering the trial of Anders Behring Breivik — the man who has admitted killing 77 people on 22 July in Norway last summer.

On the one hand, Breivik is gaining another bout of publicity for his crimes.

On the other, the journalist’s role is to document a trial which inevitably has attracted significant public attention.

Although Twitter’s use in court is not new, this is a particularly high profile case which also presents a wealth of potential ethical issues for journalists using the microblogging tool to cover the trial.

I have a new article up at Index on Censorship which explores some of the issues.

Head over there to read more.