Members of the Sufi group, Ahlu Sunna Waljama (ASWJ), shut down Radio Dhusamareb of central Somalia on Wednesday evening. Seven masked intruders forced staff to evacuate the building and the station’s editor was arrested and taken into custody. He has now been released without charge. Less than 24 hours before the attack, Al Shabaab militants silenced the Voice of Hiran radio station in the town of Beletweyne.
Western policymakers must proceed with caution when considering online surveillance and web-blocking; their actions impact on human rights abroad, argues Cynthia Wong
Javier Sicilia led 200,000 people to Mexico City’s El Zocalo plaza in May in a National March for Justice and against Impunity. Just last week he led hundreds of others people in a Citizens Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity, he called it a “trail of pain” to protest the violence of the Mexican drug war. But until recently he had spent most of his life as a poet, known primarily in literary circles as the editor of the literary magazine Conspiratio and winner of Mexico’s top literary prize, the Aguascalientes National Award in Poetry.
That changed on March 28, 2011 when his 24-year-old son, Juan Francisco Sicilia Ortega was murdered in Cuernavaca, Mexico, by a drug gang. Ortega’s body was discovered in an abandoned car, along with six friends, they had been tortured. The deaths were “collateral damage” in Mexico’s drug war.
Now Sicilia is the nation’s new leader of civil resistance against the drug war and a beacon for free speech. His message demands justice for the victims of Mexico’s drug war, like his son.
But his new role does not come without difficulties, earlier this week, Sicilia had to clarify his beliefs, assuring the public that he was not calling for the removal of army units that patrol some northern Mexican cities even though those police units have been rendered useless by traffickers with greater firepower. Instead, he said that residents of Ciudad Juarez, on the US-Mexico border, need to be heard: most citizens want the army to leave their city, but some in other northern border cities can’t carry on with their daily lives without the presence of army units.
Sicilia is one of a handful of representatives of civil society, who have climbed onto the bully pulpit after their children were killed by drug traffickers, government forces or corrupt officials.
Isabel Miranda de Wallace, a matronly businesswoman jumped into the public arena after the kidnapping and disappearance of her son Hugo in 2005. Wallace was the first to confront corrupt police officials whom she claimed were protecting the killers. She paid for large billboards that identified the names of the suspected killers and denounced the kidnapping of her son.
Alejandro Marti, one of Mexico’s wealthiest and most successful businessman, is another grieving father turned social activist. His 14 year-old son, Fernando Marti, was kidnapped by a group of men posing as police officers. They forced the boy, his bodyguard and a chauffeur out of a bullet-proof limousine on its way to the boy’s school. The driver was tortured and killed, the bodyguard left for dead. The kidnappers killed the boy after they received the hefty ransom from his father.
Sicilia, Wallace and Marti have become examples of free speech and bravery in Mexico, unafraid of the dangers they face for demanding justice from their government.
To mark World Refugee Day, English Pen, Index on Censorship and the Committee to Protect Journalists will hold a panel discussion examining the plight of journalists and writers living in exile.
Yousef Azizi Banitorof, Iranian journalist and human rights activist
Sarata Jabbi-Dibba, First Vice-President of the Gambia Press Union
Uvindu Kurukulasuriya, Sri Lankan journalist and press freedom activist
Elisabeth Witchel, Campaign Consultant, Committee to Protect Journalists
Chaired by Rohan Jayasekera, Associate Editor at Index on Censorship
Monday 20 June 2011, 6.30pm
Free Word Centre, 60 Farringdon Road, London, EC1R 3GA
Elisabeth Witchel, Campaign Consultant at the Committee to Protect Journalists, will be joined by three writers living in exile in the UK: Iranian journalist and human rights activist Yousef Azizi Banitorof, Sri Lankan journalist and press freedom activist Uvindu Kurukulasuriya, and the first Vice-President of the Gambia Press Union Sarata Jabbi-Dibba. Together they will explore the reasons behind the choice or coercion faced by those who leave their homelands, and the main challenges once in exile.
This event marks the release of the Committee to Protect Journalists 2011 Journalists in Exile survey and aims to provide context and more in-depth discussion on the points raised therein. The survey highlights which countries around the world have driven the most journalists into exile and why, as well as looking at the broader impacts on media coverage in those countries. It also underscores some of the challenges of going into exile, such as obtaining visas, negotiating what is often a very complex asylum process, and the fact that many journalists in exile have great difficulty in continuing their work in journalism.
The discussion will be followed by a wine reception in the main hall. It is open to the public but space is limited. Email ewitchel[at]cpj.org to reserve your place.