French journalist killed in Syria – accident or deliberate attack on the press?

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Gilles Jacquier/YouTube video still

 Just as I wrote my last post, yet another journalist has been killed, this time in Syria,  in what appears to be another deliberate attack on the press.

Gilles Jacquier, 43, an award-winning foreign correspondent for French state television’s France 2, was killed last week in an attack in the divided city of Homs, during a government-escorted media trip, according to an article in the Guardian.

Jacquier, who became the first foreign reporter to die since protests against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime began in March, was among a group of 15 journalists, when he was hit in the attack, which also killed nine Syrians and injured 25.

Prosecutors in Paris have launched a preliminary murder inquiry as the French government presses for an independent inquiry.

France Télévision filed a legal complaint over the death, saying many unanswered questions remained. The corporation’s editorial director, Thierry Thuillier, said the journalists had been travelling in a convoy with a military escort that strictly controlled media’s movements.

“When the firing started, the Syrian soldiers withdrew, leaving the journalists alone and exposed. Why?” Thuillier asked. He added the fire that killed the journalist seemed to have been very “precise.”

An unnamed source close to president Nicolas Sarkozy was quoted in Le Figaro newspaper saying: “The Syrian authorities were the only ones who knew that a group of western journalists were visiting Homs that day and in which neighbourhood they were in…One could believe it was an unfortunate accident. But it’s a bit of a coincidence for a regime that seeks to discourage foreign journalists and demonise the upbringing.”

Sarkozy has been one of Assad’s most outspoken western critics, calling repeatedly for him to leave office.

IFJ presses UN for action on media killings – 106 journalists and media staff killed in 2011

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wan-ifra.org

Last year has been another bloody one for the media. In 2011, 106 journalists and media personnel were killed – many of them targeted and murdered expressly because they were journalists. In 2010, 94 were killed.

The situation is so alarming that the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), which compiled the list, is urging the United Nations Secretary General BanKi-moon to take drastic action against governments of the most dangerous countries for media.

The Federation believes journalists have been specifically hunted down and blames governments’ failure to uphold their international obligations for the ongoing violence targeting media.  

The deadliest region in 2011 was the Middle East and Arab World with 32 journalists and media personnel killed – and Iraq had the region's highest death toll with 11 dead.  Among countries with high numbers of media fatalities are: 

Pakistan: 11 

Mexico: 11 

The Philippines: 6 

Libya: 6 

Yemen: 6

Honduras: 5 

India: 5   

This year’s list confirms that journalists are among the primary victims of violence in armed conflict, ethnic and religious tensions, as well as political upheavals, which erupted in many countries during the past twelve months.  

Media professionals are exposed to serious risks as they report from the frontline of conflicts, such as in Pakistan and the Arab world, or crime prevention in the lawless parts of Mexico, where they are considered unwelcome witnesses. 

In a letter to the UN Secretary General, the IFJ calls for effective implementation of international legal instruments to combat the prevailing culture of impunity for crimes against journalists. 

“It is abundantly clear that deadly violence against journalists is not just a blip due to conflicts around the world but has become a regular cycle in many countries where journalists are hunted down, targeted and murdered by the enemies of press freedom,” said the letter signed by IFJ President, Jim Boumelha. “In a situation where governments are in denial or indifferent to what has become a regular pattern of targeted killings of journalists, it is incumbent upon yourself and the United Nations to remind them of their responsibility to protect journalists.” 

The IFJ says that violence targets not just journalists but also colleagues from all sectors of the industry, including cameramen, drivers and fixers and other support staff which are all recorded to underscore their crucial role in news gathering and reporting. 

An additional 20 journalists and collaborators also died in accidents and natural disasters incidents. 

The list of journalists and media personnel killed in 2011 is available here.

The IFJ is the world’s largest organisation of journalists, representing more than 600,000 journalists in 131 countries around the world.

Savings revolution - a new form of microfinance for the very poor is spreading like wildfire

Microcredit - providing credit to the poor (who can usually offer little or no collateral in return) -   was introduced and popularised by Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus in the 1970s as a way to lift poor people in the developing world out of poverty and help them start small businesses.  It has been very successful in Bangladesh, for example. 

But recently the practice has attracted mounting criticism. Behind success stories are disturbing reports of debts dependency and microcredit institutions hounding their debtors.

When I was in Ghana recently, Plan International took me to see a very exciting new model of microfinance in action in a poor suburb of Accra.  The system, called Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLA), is based on savings rather than debts and is managed in the community by the people themselves rather than by professionals. 

Freedom savings group in Accra/Fjona Hill

It is a very simple, flexible and transparent system that is particularly attractive to poor women because it emphasizes small, regular savings, social insurance, participatory management, lack of pressure to borrow frequently or in large amounts and access to lump sums to meet household obligations and emergencies.

 

The scheme was initiated in 1991 in Niger by Care International, and since then was further developed by various NGOs. It is now attracting a lot of attention and rapidly spreading across the developing world, changing lives in the process. Savings groups now have 4.6 million members in 54 countries. 

 

I have written a story for the Economist about it. Here it is: 

Helping the poor to save

Small Wonder

A new model of microfinance for the very poor is spreading

Dec 10th 2011 | ACCRA | from the print edition

“MY GROUP has rescued me and my children from poverty,” says Faustina Kwei, rearranging baskets piled high with cassavas and plantains around her market stall in a poor suburb of Accra, Ghana’s capital. She used a combination of savings, dividends and loans from a savings group to rent her stall and buy stock. For the first time, she can feed her two children well and send them to school.

Ms Kwei (pictured) is one of millions of poor people to have benefited from the hottest trend in microfinance: village savings and loans associations. Millions of people like her survive on meagre and erratic earnings. Access to the simplest financial services can help stabilise their incomes, which in turn makes them less vulnerable to diseases and natural disasters. An unexpected flood or fever can push a poor family into utter destitution, or the muscular arms of loan sharks.

To read the full story, click here.

Women in the media – who is running the show?

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I belong to a group called Women in Journalism  (WiJ). We work across all the written media, from newspapers and magazines to the new media. We network, campaign, train and party. It is fun and it is needed.

I am often asked – especially by male colleagues - why do we need such an organization in this day and age. Well…Where do I start!

Kira Cochrane, a WiJ member and Guardian feature writer, trawled newspapers, radio and TV shows looking at the gender of writers, presenters and guests over several weeks. The results, published in a Guardian article this week, are even worse than I suspected and it is so depressing.

From Monday 13th June to Friday 8th July – before the school summer holidays started, to avoid any skewing effect – Kira and a group of researchers carried out a simple count of newspaper bylines. They went through seven daily newspapers in their entirety each day, counting and recording the number of male and female writers, and then calculating the percentage values.

They found that in a typical month, women journalists accounted for just 22.6 per cent, as opposed to 77.4 per cent for male reporters, and there wasn't a single day, on a single newspaper, when the number of female bylines outstripped or equalled the number of male bylines.

During that four-week period, they also logged the gender of reporters and guests on the BBC radio 4 agenda-setting Today programme and the BBC TV political show Question Time.

72% of the BBC political show Question Time contributors are men and 84% of reporters and guests on Radio 4's Today show are men.

Where are all the women?

Does it matter who reports the news and appears on current affairs programmes?

According to the most recent survey by the Global Media Monitoring Project (March 2010), women feature in only about a fifth of the world’s news headlines and just ten percent of all news stories.

“Literally thousands of stories about, by and for women are never told.  This sends a message that women’s experiences and opinions are just not as important or as valid as those of men,” says Alison Clarke, who created Women’s Views on News, a women’s daily online news and current affairs service, to redress the imbalance in women’s favour. (The site is down at the moment because of technical difficulties).

Write for Rights 2011

I am writing this short post to urge everyone to participate in Amnesty International's Write for Rights 2011 campaign in celebration of the organization's 50th anniversary and to mark International Human Rights Day on Saturday 10 December.

Millions of people around the globe take all forms of action for Amnesty’s campaigns, from online petitions and other methods of digital communication to public rallies and demonstrations. But in the organisation’s 50th year, the humble hand-written letter is being championed once again, in a “penaissance”.

Sending a card with a simple, personal greeting is a powerful way to show support for someone facing human rights abuse.

Every card matters. For prisoners of conscience, for families whose relatives have disappeared, for people in danger for defending human rights, the cards bring comfort and hope; they offer encouragement and support, and raise spirits. Above all they are a sign that people care.

The cards can also make an impression on police officers, prison staff and political authorities - and that can help to improve the way they treat individuals at risk.

AI hopes that more people than ever before will write a letter demanding action on one of the ten cases in the Write for Rights campaign. The cases illustrate the diversity of Amnesty’s work; from people facing the death penalty to communities facing forced eviction and women who are challenging the impunity which allows soldiers in Mexico to avoid justice for rape.

Kate Allen, Director of Amnesty International UK, said:

“In 1961, when Amnesty was started, our founding members had no idea whether ordinary people writing letters to Heads of State and other people in power would make any difference. It turns out that it did, and it still does.

“These days, we Tweet the President of Azerbaijan, or e-mail the head of the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles – and we will continue to deploy every weapon in our arsenal - but the humble, classic letter is a uniquely formidable tool.

“A letter has the power to embarrass, persuade, protect, coerce and force people to alter their behaviour, and ultimately to change the world. If you want to right the wrongs, write about them.”

The ten individuals and groups who feature in Amnesty International’s Write for Rights campaign, include; Jabbar Savalan, a 20 year old history student in Azerbaijan who is serving a prison sentence for anti-government comments he posted on Facebook; 75 year old Hakamada Iwao, believed to be the world's longest serving death row inmate who has spent the last 43 years awaiting execution in Japan and Inés Ferndández Ortega and Valentina Rosendo Cantú, two rape survivors in Mexico who have tirelessly campaigned to have the perpetrators of the attack brought to justice.

It is simple to take part.  Just follow the advice given with each case and you can be sure that your message of warmth, care and support will make a real difference.

Slavery past and present - different name, same exploitation

Elmina slave castle in Ghana

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Former BBC war reporter Rageh Omaar has spent a year making a documentary series about 21^st century slavery for Al Jazeera English.

He said he wanted to do the programme after a friend mentioned that there are 27 million people in slavery worldwide. “Most people think slavery is a thing of the past, but it’s a crime that is happening in plain sight, not just in poor developing countries but also here and in the US, in many different guises,” he told The Observer.

Omaar said he was shocked to see how common and everyday the practice was. “Modern slavery is now a fundamental part of the globalized economy….Every country on Earth has a law banning slavery, but enforcing that law, especially in today’s deregulated economic system, is very difficult."

Forced labour, bonded labour, human trafficking… millions of men, women and children around the world are forced to lead lives as slaves. It is often not called slavery, but the conditions are the same. People are sold like objects, forced to work for little or no pay and are at the mercy of their 'employers'.

According to research accepted by the US government, it is cheaper to purchase a slave today than is was at the height of the Transatlantic slave trade.

I recently visited the infamous Elmina Castle on the west coast of Ghana (or Gold Coast as the country was called at the time). It is one of the most important stops on the route of the Transatlantic slave trade and the horror of this terrible place still sticks to my skin.  It is hard to believe that slavery is still going strong today.  For, when seeing a place like Elmina which reeks of terror and violence, one has to  scream:  “How could we?” and “Never again.”   But when do we learn?

Built by Portugal in 1482, Elmina was the first trading post built on the Gulf of Guinea, so is the oldest European building in existence below the Sahara.

First established as a trade settlement, the castle later became one of the biggest slave fortresses in Africa.  In 1637, it served the Dutch slave trade with Brazil and the Caribbean, then in 1800s, become property of the British Empire. Today, it is a popular historical site, recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

The Door of No Return in Elmina Castle/ Dominique Chadwick

 Elmina, like other West African slave fortresses, housed luxury suites for the Europeans in the upper levels. The slave dungeons below were cramped and filthy, each cell often housing as many as 150 to 500 people at a time, without enough space to even lie down. Men and women routinely stayed there for three months until a ship was ready to take them away. The floor of the dungeons, as result of centuries of impacted filth and human excrement, is now several inches higher than when the place was built.

A special staircase with a trap door led directly from the women’s dungeon to the governor’s bedroom.

One of the castle’s two churches stands just above the women’s dungeon. I wonder if the European soldiers, administrators and priests who were posted there found it incongruous to be  praying while hundreds of chained, frightened and desperate women wailed underneath their feet…But then, we are all so good at justifying our actions, at not questioning things that are part of our culture, practices or environment. Would we have been different?

The most poignant sight at Elmina is the Door of No Return, the infamous portal through which slaves boarded the ships that would take them on the treacherous journey across the Atlantic known as the Middle Passage.  Our guide estimated that, over the castle’s 300 years as a slave fortress, some 12 to 15 million captives must have passed through the Door of No Return.

Omaar’s Slavery: A 21^st Century Evil is on Al Jazeera English on Monday nights.

Crime Kills More Than War - Global Patterns in Lethal Violence

Nine out of ten violent deaths occur outside conflict zones, and crime is the single largest contributor to violent killing.

These startling findings of this year’s report on the Global Burden of Armed Violence, enlarges the context of lethal violence:  it is not necessary linked to war, armed conflict and terrorism, but encompasses crime, gang-related violence and gender-related violence, as well.

Violent murders occur in both developed and developing countries where poverty, inequality, social and political exclusion, and governance challenges are both causes and consequences of armed violence.  In fact, more people per capita were killed in El Salvador than in Iraq, reveals the report by the Geneva Declaration on Armed Violence and Development, released last week in Geneva.

Out of the 526,000 people who die as a result of armed violence every year, only 55,000 of them lose their lives in conflict or as a result of terrorism.  Instead, 396,000 people - including 66,000 women - are victims of murder, 54,000 die as a result of manslaughter  and 21,000 violent deaths occur during law enforcement actions.  High levels of ‘femicide’ are frequently accompanied—and in some cases generated by—a high level of tolerance for violence against women, the report notes.

“The boundaries between political, criminal, and interpersonal violence have become increasingly blurred, as revealed in cases of killings associated with drug trafficking in Central America or of pirates engaging in economically-motivated violence in Somalia,” said Keith Krause, one of the editors and authors of the report.

One-quarter of all violent deaths occur in just 14 countries (average annual violent death rates above 30.0 per 100,000) -  half of which are in the Americas. Although wars dominate media headlines, the levels of armed violence in some non-conflict countries resemble those of conflict zones. El Salvador was the country with the most per capita lethal violence in an average year between 2004 and 2009, followed by Iraq, then Jamaica, according to the report.

Not surprisingly, the report also links lethal violence to underdevelopment.

“States with high levels of lethal violence almost always struggle to achieve the Millennium Development Goals,” said Krause. “And we also know that when a country makes progress in terms of development, it is likely to exhibit decreasing levels of lethal violence.”

Echoing the results of a growing body of research, the report also confirms that countries with low levels of income inequality and unemployment experience lower levels of homicide.

The Global Burden of Armed Violence is produced by the Geneva Declaration on Armed Violence and Development, a diplomatic initiative aimed at addressing the interrelations between armed violence and development. The Declaration was adopted on 7 June 2006 and is now endorsed by over 100 states.