Latest From the Frontline

Jehad Nga will be talking at the Frontline Club tonight (Fri 5 September 7.30 pm UK time) about his photographs from Somalia. The talk is part of the Somalia season we are running at present. Click the video above to learn more about that. As usual, if you can’t make it tonight, please come and join us on the Frontline Club live video channel to watch the talk live online,

Jehad Nga is one of the most talented emerging photographers on the international scene and for the last three years has worked intensely in and around Mogadishu. For one night only he will present a selection of images from his portfolio and talk about operating as a photographer in one of the world’s most dangerous environments. link

Marcus Bleasdale is a bit of a regular in these parts and it seems the Oslo-based photojournalist has been busy of late. The above frame is taken from a recent commission in Georgia. Beyond all out war, Marcus has also visited Venezuala and the USA. There are some great pictures (as usual) in all these presentations. We interviewed Marcus last year.

Francoise Demulder, the French war photographer who became the first woman to win the World Press Photo award in 1976, has died, according to the International Herald Tribune today. She died of a heart attack at a hospital in Paris. She was 61 years old.

“She was considered by all her colleagues as very courageous,” [journalist Genevieve Lamouroux, a longtime friend] said in a telephone interview. “She was always on the front line.” link

Now that’s how to do a multimedia presentation and get inside the workings of a photojournalist on the road all through images and emails. A Georgian Diary by Thomas Dworzak for Magnum in Motion is excellent,

The Russians invaded Georgia on August 8th, while George W. Bush was in Beijing attending the Olympics. Twenty days passed and Barack Obama was officially named the Democratic Party candidate for the 2008 presidential run. In the meantime, the escalating harsh conflict in Georgia left Europeans and Americans aghast. link

The Wired Danger Room blog does a good job rounding up the number of journalists who have been detained by US forces in Iraq.

In late August, for example, Ali al-Mashhadani – a freelance cameraman working for Reuters, the BBC, and NPR – was released by the U.S. military in after 26 days in detention. It was his third stint in American custody. In June, Ahmed al-Majun, president of the local journalists’ union in Tikrit, was held for five days by American forces. Iraqi forces arrested freelance writer Kalchan Al-Bayati twice in two weeks during September, 2006. And in the best known case of a journalist’s arrest, U.S. troops detained Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Bilal Hussein for more than two years before being released in April. link

And as Noah Shachtman notes on the Danger Room blog, and we noted yesterday, no journalist has been successfully prosecuted on such charges.

Ibrahim Jassam, an Iraqi photographer working for Reuters, has been arrested by US forces south of Baghdad. He “posed a threat to security” an army officer told AFP by email. Reuters demand he is either charged or released,

“We are concerned to hear about Jassam’s detention, and urge the US military to either charge or release him once an initial investigatory stage is concluded,” Reuters editor-in-chief David Schlesinger said in a statement. “Any accusations against a journalist should be aired publicly and dealt with fairly and swiftly, with the journalist having the right to counsel and present a defence. Iraqi journalists like Jassam play a vital role in telling this story to the world.” link

Jassam’s photographic equipment has also been confiscated. This arrest comes one month after another Reuters cameraman, freelancer Ali al-Mashhadani, was also detained and held without charge for three weeks. More than 20 journalists have been arrested in Iraq in 2008, according to Reporters without borders. All were released without charge, some after spending months behind bars.

“Simply possessing a camera or a film camera seems to be taken as evidence that some journalists are involved in terrorist networks,” [Reporters without borders] said. “We are baffled by the lack of discrimination by the authorities.” link

Abdulla Alishayev, a journalist from the republic of Daghestan died today after being attacked by gunmen on Tuesday. Alishayev worked as the anchor to a popular religious programme Peace to Your Home.

He was attacked in his car in the village of Separatorny near Daghestan’s capital, Makhachkala. An official said he died in hospital.

Earlier this week Magomed Yevloyev was killed in the North Caucasus republic of Ingushetia when a police officer shot him in a car on Sunday.

“Russia now ranks as the third-most-dangerous place in the world to be a journalist, behind only Iraq and Colombia. Reporters Without Borders has counted 21 journalists murdered in Russia since 2000, including Anna Politkovskaya, the country’s most courageous investigative journalist, in October 2006.” link

UPDATE: Reuters are reporting the name of the journalist is Abdulla Alishayev and not Telman Alishayev as reported by RIA Novosti and originally blogged here. Now changed to Reuters.

“Alishayev received wounds to the shoulder and head. He was operated on, but his life could not be saved,” police said. link

Gruesome news from Philadelphia. Two former funeral directors have admitted to “selling cadavers to a ring that cut them up and sold the body parts to hospitals for implants". Not only that, but one of the bodies was that of esteemed foreign correspondent and voice of Letter from America, Alistair Cooke.

One of the bodies belonged to Alistair Cooke, the British foreign correspondent known for his “Letter from America” for the BBC and as host of the PBS television show “Masterpiece Theater". He died of cancer in 2004. link

The corpses were dismembered by a team of “cutters” in a scheme a grand jury report last October called “ghoulish, greedy, dangerous and criminal.”

Martin Plaut will chair a discussion about Somalia at the Frontline Club tonight - Tue 2nd September, 7.30pm UK time. If you can’t make it in person, please tune in to the Frontline Club live channel to watch it online and take part in the dicussion. Taking part will be Awale Kullane, from the New Somali Youth League, Tom Quinn of MSF, Khadija Ali, a Somali peace activist (via skype) and Juliana Ruhfus, from Al-Jazeera. The author Dr. Ioan Lewis was due to take part, but has had to cancel. The big question up for debate is,

What is the future of this war-ravaged and poverty-stricken country and what are its chances for an effective government? And what can be done to ensure that a humanitarian crisis on a massive scale is avoided and that Somalia remains open to aid workers and international assistance? link

UPDATE: Here is the recording of the discussion in case you missed it.

Andrew Berends and his Nigerian fixer Samuel George were arrested in the Nigerian city of Port Harcourt at the weekend. Berends has been working in the Niger Delta since April making a film about the oil-producing area that has been riven with conflict between government forces and armed separatists since the early 1990s,

“Berends was arrested just for doing his job and no other reason,” Reporters Without Borders said. “It is absurd for the authorities to think that, by arresting him and his interpreter, they can conceal the economic and ecological disaster unfolding in the Niger Delta. Both of them must be freed at once and left alone. This is the third time in a year that baseless charges of spying have been brought against foreign journalists.” link

Berends recently received a portion of the Gucci Tribeca Documentary Finishing Fund. He previously directed the film Blood of my brother which looks at the consequences of the Iraq war through the eyes of an Iraqi family. There’s an interview with on the KGB Bar Lit blog.

UPDATE: The TIFF blog has more including this link in the comments to The D-Word,

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT
Aaron Soffin, Storyteller Productions
Phone: 917.887.4063 / 212.712.2781
Email: soffin@gmail.com

American documentary filmmaker detained in Port Harcourt, Nigeria

NEW YORK, September 2, 2008 – Andrew Berends, an established, award-winning American filmmaker and journalist from New York, was detained Sunday August 31st by the Nigerian military along with his translator, Samuel George, and Joe Bussio, the manager of a local bar. Andrew entered Nigeria legally in April 2008 to complete a documentary film.

Andrew was held in custody without food, sleep, or representation, and with limited water for 36 hours. He was questioned by the army, the police, and the State Security Services in Port Harcourt. He was then temporarily released, with an order to the SSS office at 9AM Tuesday morning. The State Security Services has confiscated his passport and personal property. Andrew’s translator, Samuel George, remained in custody over night.

The US State Department is aware of the situation, and an attorney has been retained on Andrew’s behalf. We, Andrew’s friends, family, and colleagues, are deeply concerned that he has been held without cause and are calling for his safe treatment and immediate release. link