2 Hellman / Hammett Awards Go To Turkey
Among the recipients are: - Gabriela Adamesteanu, a celebrated Romanian novelist who has faced numerous threats since assuming the editorship of Romania's most important political weekly, "22;" - Vann Nath, one of few survivors of the Khmer Rouge secret prisons, who wrote a memoir and has painted prison scenes for the genocide museum; and - Anna Politkovskaya, a Russian journalist who has reported on torture and maltreatment of Chechen villagers by Russian forces.
The Hellman/Hammett grants are given annually by Human Rights Watch to writers around the world who have been targets of political persecution. The grant program began in 1989 when the estates of American authors Lillian Hellman and Dashiell Hammett asked Human Rights Watch to design a program for writers in financial need as a result of expressing their views. This year's grants totaled $175,000.
In many countries, governments use military and presidential decrees, criminal libel, and sedition laws to silence critics, often on trumped up charges. Writers and journalists are threatened, harassed, assaulted, indicted, jailed or tortured merely for providing information from nongovernmental sources. In addition to those who are directly targeted, many others are forced to practice self-censorship.
Short biographies of the recipients who received grants in 2002 follow.
U Ba Gyan (Burma), Burma's Poet Laureate, is popularly known as U Tin Moe. He was arrested in December 1991, about the same time when students were demonstrating for the release of Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi.While in custody, he was questioned by the military intelligence for three
days and then spent six months in unknown jails. In June 1992, the military tribunal sentenced him to four years in prison. While in prison, he was prohibited from having any reading or writing material. He was released in February 1995, nine months early, and warned not to participate in any political movement, a warning he ignored. When it became clear that he would be arrested again, he decided to go abroad. He escaped by getting a passport in his real name. Not realizing that U Ba Gyan was the same person as U Tin Moe, Burmese officials missed his departure. The surveillance team noticed his absence but could not locate him until they heard interviews with him on international Burmese language radio programs. The military government has banned his works and placed his name in the writers' blacklist.
Moeun Chhean Nariddh (Cambodia), writer, linguist and teacher, has contributed significantly and uniquely during the last decade to the development of journalism in Cambodia. He contributed directly by publishing his own works in foreign and Khmer-language press and indirectly by teaching and supporting Cambodia's fledgling journalistic community. In addition to mainstream journalism, Nariddh has explored other writing forms like poetry, humor and allegory to highlight controversial issues such as HIV/AIDS, torture, and the plight of orphans and disabled people. He writes in a country where the press is highly politicized and where it can be dangerous to publish under one's own name.
Vann Nath (Cambodia) is one of seven survivors of a secret Khmer Rouge prison known as Toul Sleng or S-21 where more than 14,000 people were tortured and executed. His life was spared because he was put to work painting and sculpting portraits of the Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot. After the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia in 1979, Vann Nath escaped. When the former prison was converted to a genocide museum, he returned to work therefore several years. His paintings depicting scenes he witnessed hang in the museum today. In the mid-1990s, with the support of friends, Vann Nath wrote his memoir, A Cambodian Prison Portrait. The book is the only written memoir by a survivor of the prison, which, along with Vann Nath's paintings provides a rare glimpse into one of the Khmer Rouge's most brutal institutions. Vann Nath has continued to write and paint about his experiences despite fears of retribution from former torturers as well as a government that at best would like to tightly control a Khmer Rouge tribunal and at worst would like to forget this whole chapter of history.
Chen Maiping (China) writes short stories, poems and film scripts and has translated volumes of English and Swedish literature into Chinese. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, he frequently wrote for the underground literary magazine, Today, which caused him to be targeted by the Chinese authorities. Mr. Chen has lived in exile since 1986. After the Tiananmen massacre in 1989, he launched Today in exile to publish work by exiled Chinese writers and dissident writers in China. He works for Today on a totally volunteer basis while earning a living as an adjunct teaching Chinese at Stockholm University. His work is banned from publication in China and the Chinese government has denied him a visa to visit his 84-year-old mother. When a Hong Kong magazine was about to offer him a job as editor, Chinese authorities warned the magazine owner not to hire him.
Xu Wenli (China), writer and political activist, has spent most of the last twenty-two years in prison. In 1981, Mr. Xu was sentenced to fifteen years on charges that his participation in the "Democracy Wall" actions constituted "counter-revolutionary" crimes. Released on parole after twelve years, he was deprived of political rights and kept under heavy surveillance for the next four years. In 1997, he resumed his non-violence democracy campaign, creating a Democracy Wall program on radio. In 1998, he helped form legal political opposition parties in China and was arrested on November 30. He was tried, convicted and sentenced to thirteen years in prison for crimes of "subverting the State regime," "being interviewed by foreign journalists," and "talking with other fellow Chinese." While serving the term at Yanqing Prison in Beijing, he contracted hepatitis B, lost most of his teeth and is suffering from chronic pain, but requests for medicalparole have repeatedly been ignored.
Carlos Pulgarin Guevara (Colombia), journalist for El Tiempo, was forced to leave Monteria and then Bucaramanga because of death threats from the paramilitary and officials in the Colombian army. In 1999, Mr. Pulgarin was brutally attacked and briefly kidnapped. He sought exile in Peru but continued to receive death threats. He then fled to Spain. In September 2000, he returned to Colombia resuming work at El Tiempo, this time as a night editor. The threats resumed even though he was no longer covering the paramilitary. He fled again, first to Argentina and then to Costa Rica but was unable to find work enough to support himself. He returned to Bogota and began teaching journalism at the Universidad de la Sabana when new threats forced him into exile once again.
Victor Rolando Arroyo (Cuba), journalist, openly criticizes oppressive government practices in stories that he sends to European and U.S. newspapers. Mr. Arroyo has refused to emigrate despite ongoing government harassment. In January 1995, he was beaten and held in jail for nine days after organizing a ceremony to commemorate the birth of José Marti. In 1996, he was sentenced to eighteen months in prison and held in a "tapiada" cell -- a narrow, dark and extremely humid cell -- for "disrespecting" the government. In July 1998, while detained for organizing a ceremony in the memory of those murdered by the government's sinking of a tugboat in Havana's harbor, state security agents raided his home. In January 2000, he was charged with "hoarding" and sentenced to eighteen months in prison for organizing a toy drive and distributing toys to needy Cuban children. He served six months. In October 2000, he was beaten on three separate occasions. In October 2001, rocks and bottles containing flammable chemicals were thrown at his mother's home where he lives with his wife and children. Threatening notes were also thrown through the broken windows. His mail and phone calls are regularly intercepted.
Kidane Yibrah Beyene (Eritrea), reporter, started receiving threats and warnings after writing an article about a wounded soldier who was not receiving proper medical treatment. Colleagues advised him to leave the country, so he fled to Ethiopia and spent six months in a refugee compound before making his way to the United States. The September 2001 closure of all non-state print media makes it unlikely that it will be safe for Mr. Beyene to return any time soon.
Milkias Mihreteab (Eritrea) was founder and editor-in-chief of an independent biweekly newspaper. He was also president of the Eritrean Independent Press Association, an organization not recognized by the government. On September 18, 2001, the government closed all non-state print media and security forces removed computers, phones, faxes and copiers from their offices. At first, reasons for the closure were unclear, but the head of the state run television system later said that the papers were suspended in the interest of national unity after they published letters critical of the government's crackdown on political dissent. Police arrested at least eleven reporters and others fled, among them Kidane Yibrah Beyene and Semere Taezaz Sium. Mr. Mihreteab went first to Sudan where he was followed by Eritrean government agents and then came to Washington, D.C.
Semere Taezaz Sium (Eritrea) was a reporter at Keste Debena where Milkias Mibreteab was editor until the government closed all non-state print papers in September 2001. In the week following the closure, eleven reporters were arrested so Mr. Taezaz fled with Mr. Mibreteab to Sudan. When state agents pursued them to Sudan, they escaped to Ethiopia and made their way to Washington, D.C.
Baba Galleh Jallow (Gambia), reporter, editor and founder of The Independent newspaper, has been repeatedly harassed by Gambia's secret police, the National Intelligence Agency. In August 1996, he was detained and questioned about the meaning of an advertisement. In August 1998, he was arrested and accused of dealing in arms and drugs and possessing dangerous documents for publishing a story that allegedly violated state secrecy. In December 1999, he was charged with "libel against the President" after the paper ran an article that questioned the stability of the president's marriage. The charge was dropped, but harassment continued. In June 2000, immigration officers accused him of being a non-Gambian and seized his identity papers. In July 2000, Mr. Jallow was taken to police headquarters and interrogated about a story in the paper that he edited which reported on a hunger strike by inmates at State Central Mile Two Prisons. When he and the reporter refused to reveal their sources, they were detained. Eventually released on bail, they were required to report daily to the police. Because of persistent persecution, Mr. Jallow fled to the United States, leaving his parents, wife and children in Gambia.
Roshanks Daryoush (Iran), writer, translator of German literature into Persian and a member of the Iranian Writers' Association, has been arrested several times since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. In 1999, Ms. Daryoush received a writing grant to go to Germany. While there, she served as a translator at the April 2000 Berlin Conference on Iran. Several prominent Iranian political activists attended the conference to discuss the future of reform in Iran. In May 2000, on their return to Iran, all of the conference participants were arrested and detained. An arrest warrant was issued for Ms. Daryoush, but she stayed in Germany rather than returning to face arrest and detention. Ms. Daryoush's husband, Khalil Rostamkhani, also a translator, who had helped organize the Berlin Conference from Iran, was arrested and sentenced to nine years in prison.
Ftameh Govaraei (Iran), journalist, was editor of a weekly magazine, Payam-e Hajar, and wrote for many newspapers, all are among the more than fifty publications that have been closed down over the past two years. But Ms. Govaraei's political activism predates her journalism career. Before the Islamic revolution, when only 16 years old, she was arrested and detained; in the early days after the revolution, she was held for three years. In the fall of 1999, security forces raided a political meeting at her house and arrested her. She was tried before the Revolutionary Court and sentenced to fifty lashes and six months in prison. That sentence is under appeal. Undeterred, Ms. Govaraei, is working with the National Religious Alliance (NRA), a loosely knit group of activists who came together to contest the parliamentary elections in 2000. They advocate for implementation of constitutional provisions to uphold the rule of law. In March 2001, Ms. Govaraei was arrested together with twenty members of the NRA. She was later released on bail and is awaiting trial.
Mehrangiz Kar (Iran), attorney, has been writing about women's rights and the legal system in Iran for more than twenty years. She was among the first to express concern about the "Islamization" of gender relations in Iran following the revolution in 1979. In April 2000, Ms. Kar attended an international conference in Berlin on the future of reform in Iran. The conference was also attended by exiled political activists, which allowed Iranian conservatives to portray it as linked to hostile foreign powers. When Ms. Kar returned to Iran, she was arrested and sentenced to four years in prison. After one month, she was released but the sentence still stands. After being released from prison, Ms. Kar was diagnosed with breast cancer. She had surgery and then went to the United States for follow-up treatment. While she was in the U.S., her husband, Siamak Pourzand, a 73-year-old journalist, was arrested and sentenced at a closed trial to eleven years in prison. As of publication of this report, his whereabouts are unknown.
Johann Wandetto (Kenya), journalist, started his career at the state-run Kenya Broadcasting Corporation in Nairobi. Since 1995, he has been writing for The People, a daily newspaper that covers a region near the Uganda border that is politically hostile to the ruling Kenya Africa National Union. Mr. Wandetto has been arrested repeatedly on charges of publishing alarmist reports aimed at undermining state security, for publishing false news, and most recently for publishing military secrets. Sometimes the charges were dismissed, but he served an eighteen-month prison term on the alarmist reporting charge.
Abdullai Dukuly (Liberia) is a journalist in a country where harassment of independent journalists has worsened since the government of Charles Taylor took power in 1997. Mr. Dukuly was arrested and charged with espionage following an article he wrote in The NEWS that criticized the Liberian government for extra-budgetary spending. The NEWS is one of a few independent media voices that have survived attack by the Taylor government. The government claimed that the article intended "to reveal national defense information to a foreign power for the purpose of injuring Liberia." Mr.Dukuly lost his job and is struggling to survive on wages from free-lance reporting.
Musue Noha Haddad (Liberia) is one of Liberia's leading journalists, a dangerous profession in a country where journalists are subject to abduction, assault, arson and arbitrary detention without charge. Ms. Haddad wrote unbiased, factual reports, criticizing the government and providing information that the government tried to suppress. Following articles she wrote about a visit to the United States in 1998, she was accused of spying as a CIA employee. In the fall of 2000, she accepted a fellowship at the University of Maryland. In February 2001 when many of her colleagues at The NEWS were imprisoned, she became their advocate in the international community. As a result, Liberian death threats followed her to the United States where she now lives in hiding.
Gabriela Adamesteanu (Romania) is a much-celebrated author of novels, short stories and political commentary. Since the end of Ceausescu's dictatorship in 1989, Ms. Adamesteanu has devoted all of her talent and energy to editing Romania's most important political weekly, "22," a magazine that
Propounds human rights, democratic values(,) and openness toward the West. During the Yugoslav conflicts, the magazine defended human rights and minority rights.It has openly debated the situation of the Roma and Hungarians. It has covered women's rights, orphanages, corruption in the current administration, the Romanian Holocaust and the Romanian gulag. She and the magazine staff have faced numerous threats from nationalist political parties, individuals and former communist secret police agents. They were brutally attacked during the so-called miners "interventions" in 1990-91. Through it all, "22" has maintained a high standard of journalism despite precarious political and financial hardship.
Anna Politkovskaya (Russia), journalist, is known for reporting on living conditions in Chechnya and torture and maltreatment against Chechen villagers by Russian forces. In February 2001, she was arrested in Chechnya while gathering information from refugees. She was accused of entering Chechnya without permission but she says the charge is linked to her investigation of a "filtration camp" where prisoners were held for ransom. In September 2001, she wrote about a helicopter that was shot down killing a Russian general who was en route to Moscow to report to President Putin about the Russian army's conduct in Chechnya. The Defense Ministry asked that the article be suppressed and warned that she would be killed if she returned to Chechnya. The paper hired a bodyguard for her but repeated phone threats kept her house bound. At her editor's insistence, she fled to Vienna. Ms. Politkovskaya's eyewitness accounts of the war and Russian government attempts to manipulate media coverage of it are published as a book in English titled A Dirty War.
The Khartoum Monitor (Sudan), the country's only English-language daily,publishes articles that focus on government policies, its human rights record, and the ongoing war in southern Sudan. Since its inception in the summer of 2000, The Khartoum Monitor has been repeatedly censored and harassed by the Sudanese government. The censorship process often took as long as six hours on a single issue. The paper has been intermittently closed down on charges of inciting religious and racial hatred that undermines the peace process. It now publishes on the Internet at www.khartoummonitor.com.
Sarah Mkhonza (Swaziland), novelist, short story writer and lecturer at the University of Swaziland, also writes a weekly column in the only local newspaper not owned by the government. An outspoken advocate of women's rights in a country where the king is an absolute monarch, Ms. Mkhonza became a target after she repeatedly criticized the king and his brother in her newspaper column. She also wrote about protests. In one column, she reported on a mock funeral organized to protest the state's refusal to allow an evicted farmer to bury his wife's corpse at their old home. Shortly after this incident, Ms. Mkhonza was denied a promised promotion to be the chair of the English Department. In 2001, two of her computers were stolen. In the second theft, the computer was found dumped in the mud with her diskettes destroyed nearby.
Fikret Baskaya (Turkey), professor of Economic Development and International Relations, is the author of several books and articles on development economics. He also wrote a regular newspaper opinion column. Mr. Baskaya was imprisoned from March 1994 to July 1995 under Article 8 of Turkey's Anti-Terror Law for writing a book titled The Bankruptcy of [the]Paradigm. In June 2000, he was convicted under the same Article 8 for "disseminating separatist propaganda through the press" based on a 1999 newspaper column titled "A Historical Trial." Found guilty on appeal, he was released from prison in June 2002 after serving one year of a sixteen-month sentence.
Saban Dayanan (Turkey), photojournalist, writes for environmental and human rights publications. Following the 1980 military coup, when Mr. Dayanan was thirteen years old, he was arrested and tortured on charges that he had written slogans and communist propaganda. After serving 27 months in prison,he was released but police continued to harass him. In 1988-89, he was beaten by police while photographing demonstrations. In 1990, he was prosecuted but acquitted on the basis of a letter he wrote to the leader of the ruling political party about an incident, in which police tried to make villagers from Yesilyurt in Sirnak eat excrement. In 1992, he was attacked and wounded by police while covering a press conference held by striking workers. In 1996, he was beaten by police while monitoring a public announcement by relatives of prisoners' families. He has been detained on at least nineteen occasions. More than forty cases have been opened against him. Most prosecutions ended with acquittal, but thirteen are still in progress. He has been frequently subjected to death threats. In November 2001, he was wounded during an armed attack on the Human Rights Association in Istanbul.
Shukhrat Babadjanov (Uzbekistan), journalist, was the driving force behind ALC, Uzbekistan's independent TV station -- despite Uzbekistan having some of the strictest censorship laws in the world. For several years, the Uzbek government tried to silence Mr. Babadjanov, finally resorting to shutting ALC down by claiming that it lacked an alarm system to protect its equipment. Mr. Babadjanov and his colleagues maintain that the closure was in retaliation for ALC's critical coverage during the run-up to presidential and parliamentary elections in 1999. After the closure, Mr. Babadjanov took the unprecedented step of launching a legal action to obtain renewal of his broadcast license, but his many applications for a new license were turned down and he was forced to vacate the station's premises. Shortly afterwards, he was charged with forgery based on a ten-year old letter of recommendation. Well-placed friends warned him that he would also be charged with links to international terrorism, for which the penalty can range from sixteen years in prison to death. He decided his only course was to flee: he escaped to Germany via Kazakhstan and Turkey with the help of friends. He is now based in Berlin where he writes for Internet news sites about journalism and human rights in Uzbekistan under a pseudonym.
Le Chi Quang (Vietnam) is a young activist for human rights and democracy who started writing prolifically in 2000, soon after graduating from law school. All of Le Chi Quang's articles are banned in Vietnam but are widely published abroad and on the Internet. He was arrested in September 2001 and put under house arrest. At three public meetings in October and November 2001, he was denounced by the police as reactionary and subversive. Police warned his parents that they would be in serious trouble unless they restrained their son. Friends and relatives were warned not to meet him. His phone line was cut in September 2001. No attorney would hire him and he has been unable to find work.
Nguyen Dan Que (Vietnam), a physician who was imprisoned and prevented from practicing for the past twenty-five years, is a prolific writer of essays and open letters that advocate free elections and a multi-party politicalsystem. He spent eighteen years in hard labor camps, 1976-86 and again1990-98. Since his release on August 30, 1998, he has been under house arrest in Ho Chi Minh City. He cannot leave his home without written authorization from security officials and his visitors are subject to police interrogation. In September 2000, he founded The Future, a review that is distributed secretly in Vietnam and openly overseas. After excerpts from The Future appeared on the Internet, Nguyen Dan Que's phone, fax and email lines were cut, his home was searched, and he was subjected to a public defamation session.
Nguyen Vu Binh (Vietnam) spent eight years as reporter for the Tap Chi Cong San (Communist Review) until he resigned in December 2000 to show opposition to the one-party system. In February 2001, he applied for permission to create the Liberal Democratic Party and started writing articles calling for
economic and political reforms. Since then, he has been harassed repeatedly - his phone line was intercepted, he became subject to frequent interrogation at police headquarters, his friends were "advised" not to meet him, and enterprises were warned not to hire him.
Thich Quang Do (Vietnam), Buddhist scholar, poet, and translator, was a lecturer at the Buddhist University of Van Hanh in Saigon until April 1975.His first arrest was in April 1977. He was tortured and held in solitary confinement until December 1978, and then prosecuted for "sabotaging popular solidarity and using religion to undermine public order." Acquitted by a People's Court, Thich Quang Do continued to express dissent against the government policy on religion and civil and human rights. In February 1982, he was arrested and banished to his native village in northern Vietnam. He was released in 1992 and re-arrested in November 1994. This arrest was thought to be prompted by protests he made on behalf of members of the Unified Buddhist Church who were organizing a flood relief mission. He was released from prison in 1998.
Tran Van Khue (Vietnam), professor and researcher in Chinese and Vietnamese literature, retired in 1996 to devote himself to writing. He has written hundreds of articles for various Vietnamese reviews. He was a founder of the Centre for Southeast Asia Culture, an anticorruption nongovernmental organization, which made him a target for harassment - phone lines were cut, friends were discouraged from seeing him, and anonymous letters were sent to his colleagues denouncing him as a traitor of the fatherland. In September 2001, he was placed under house arrest for two years. He refused to obey and challenged the authorities to take him to court.
Wilfred Mbanga (Zimbabwe), founder, former editor and a contributor to The Daily News, a leading newspaper in Harare, has been harassed repeatedly throughout his 35-year career. He left the paper's editorship due to concern for the safety of his family. His home telephone is tapped and his movements are under surveillance. The Daily News was bombed twice in 2000 and 2001. Harassment of Mr. Mbanga and the current editor, Geoffrey Nyarota,intensified as the presidential elections approached. On November 8, 2001, Mr. Mbanga was arrested with Mr. Nyarota and held for thirty-two hours on a false charge of fraud when founding The Daily News. A Regional Magistrate dismissed the charge. Since then, Mr. Mbanga has been "blacklisted" by state-run media, which include 100 percent of Zimbabwe's radio and television stations and about 80 percent of its print media.
Geoffrey Nyarota (Zimbabwe), founder, reporter, and now editor-in-chief of The Daily News through which he and his colleagues expose malpractice by the government and put forth views different than those that the government expounds. In January 2001, The Daily News printing press was destroyed by landmines. Successively, in March, April and May 2001, Mr. Nyarota was charged with defamation and filing false reports by the Minister of State for Information and Publicity, the Speaker of Parliament, and President Mugabe. They based their charges on Daily News articles criticizing their performance, linking them to unauthorized payments, and reporting on violence surrounding the 2000 parliamentary elections. On November 8, 2001, Mr. Nyarota was arrested, held in jail overnight, and charged with fraud on the paper's license application. The charge was later dismissed.
Other recipients will remain anonymous because of the dangerouscircumstances in which they are working.
The Hellman/Hammett grants are announced each spring. In the twelve previous years of the program, more than 400 writers received grants totaling more than one million dollars. The Hellman/Hammett program also makes small emergency grants from time to time throughout the year to writers who have an urgent need to leave their country or who find themselves in desperatefinancial circumstances as a result of political persecution. (NM)