This obviously non-exhaustive list pays homage not only to the 100 famous and less well known people on it, but also to all the professional and non-professional journalists who constantly help to shed light on the world and cover every aspect of its reality. This initiative aims to show that the fight for freedom of information requires not only active support for the victims of abuses but also the promotion of those who can serve as models.
RSF | April 29, 2014
For the first time ever, Reporters Without Borders is publishing a list of profiles of “100 information heroes” for World Press Freedom Day (3 May).
Through their courageous work or activism, these “100 heroes” help to promote the freedom enshrined in article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the freedom to “to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” They put their ideals in the service of the common good. They serve as examples.
“World Press Freedom Day, which Reporters Without Borders helped to create, should be an occasion for paying tribute to the courage of the journalists and bloggers who constantly sacrifice their safety and sometimes their lives to their vocation,” said Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Christophe Deloire.
“These ‘information heroes’ are a source of inspiration to all men and women who aspire to freedom. Without their determination and the determination of all those like them, it would be simply impossible to extend the domain of freedom.”
This obviously non-exhaustive list pays homage not only to the 100 famous and less well known people on it, but also to all the professional and non-professional journalists who constantly help to shed light on the world and cover every aspect of its reality. This initiative aims to show that the fight for freedom of information requires not only active support for the victims of abuses but also the promotion of those who can serve as models.
The list of “100 information heroes” comprises women and men of almost all ages (25 to 75) and 65 nations. The youngest, Oudom Tat, is Cambodian and the oldest, Muhammed Ziauddin, is Pakistani. Twenty-five of the heroes are from the Asia-Pacific region, 20 from the Middle East and North Africa, and eight from Europe. Iran, Russia, China, Eritrea, Azerbaijan, Mexico and Vietnam are each represented by at least three heroes.
The lists includes such varied figures as Anabel Hernandez, the author of a bestseller on the collusion between Mexican politicians and organized crime, Ismail Saymaz, a Turkish journalist who has been prosecuted a score of times for his reporting, Hassan Ruvakuki, who was jailed for 15 months in Burundi for interviewing members of a rebel movement, and Gerard Ryle, the head of International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, who has contributed to the emergence of global investigative journalism.
Some work in democracies. They include Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras, US citizens who were responsible for revealing the mass electronic surveillance methods used by the US and British intelligence agencies. Others, such as the Iranian journalist Jila Bani Yaghoob, work under the most authoritarian regimes.
Not all are professional journalists. The Vietnamese citizen-journalist Le Ngoc Thanh, for example, is also a Catholic priest. Many, such as Lirio Abbate, a specialist in the Sicilian mafia, have focused on covering corruption and organized crime. This is the case with Peter John Jaban, a Malaysian radio programme host who spent years in self-exile on London, Serhiy Lechtchenko, an investigative journalist from Ukraine, and Assen Yordanov, a Bulgarian journalist who has been repeatedly threatened.
The profiles also include activists like María Pía Matta, who has worked for nearly ten years for the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC), defending the freedom of community radio stations in Latin America.
Courage is the common denominator. In Uzbekistan, the authorities had no compunction about torturing Muhammad Bekzhanov to extract a confession. In Eritrea, ranked last in the 2014 Reporters Without Borders press freedom index for the seventh year running, Dawit Isaac has languished in the dictator Issayas Afeworki’s jails for the past 13 years. Mazen Darwish, founder of the Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression and winner of the RWB press freedom prize in 2012, has been held for more than two years by the Assad regime.
List of profiles of “100 information heroes”
Here are three Information Heroes of Vietnam
* LE NGOC THANH
Vietnam / Asia-Pacific
Anton le Ngoc Thanh is a journalist and a Catholic priest. His work for Vietnam Redemporist News, a Catholic news organization for which he has worked since the 1990s, has caused him numerous problems with the Vietnamese authorities. In 2012 he was stopped for questioning on his way to Bac Lieu in the south of the country, where a woman had set fire to herself in protest against her daughter, the blogger Ta Phong Tan, being put on trial. He was held for several hours for causing a traffic accident while travelling on foot. He was arrested again last year during a demonstration in support of the blogger and activist Dinh Nhat Uy, convicted for organizing a campaign for the release of his jailed younger brother. Thanh is under constant police surveillance and is frequently prevented from covering and publicizing the human rights abuses that he has witnessed.
* PHAM CHI DUNG
Vietnam / Asia-Pacific
Like others who have seen nomenklatura corruption up close, Pham Chi Dung returned his party card. Instead he devoted himself to writing and developing a critique of Vietnam’s political class, which he knows inside out. He was a military officer for many years and was an aide to Truong Tan Sang in Ho Chin Minh City before Sang became president in 2011. He has written about public security and the dominant cultural, economic and religious ideology. He was arrested on charges of “conspiring to overthrow the government” and “anti-government propaganda” in July 2012 in connection with articles about corruption and the government’s shortcomings, but the investigation was abandoned and he was released seven months later. His PhD in economics, his 11 books and his many interviews for the BBC, RFI and Radio Free Asia still do not protect him. His passport was confiscated as he was about to board a flight to Geneva in February 2014 to attend a conference on rights and freedoms in Vietnam.
* TRUONG DUY NHAT
Vietnam / Asia-Pacific
After starting out as a reporter for regional police publications, Truong Duy Nhat worked for the daily Dai Doan Ket (Great Solidarity). But he resigned as a state media journalist in 2010 to become a prolific and outspoken blogger, calling his blog – originally truongduynhat.vn and then, a year later, truongduynhat.org – “Another point of view.” He posted more than 1,000 articles, most of them his own, in the space of three years. After four orders to close his blogs, he was finally arrested in May 2013 and sentenced to two years in prison in connection with 12 of his most vitriolic articles. Seven months before his arrest, he wrote: ““I am neither a criminal nor a reactionary. The handcuff and gun should not be used against bloggers who sacrifice their interests to keep outspoken blogs that are helping to change the party and the people.”
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April 29, 2014
RWB PUBLISHES PROFILES OF “100 INFORMATION HEROES”
by HR Defender • Le Ngoc Thanh, Pham Chi Dung, Truong Duy Nhat
RSF | April 29, 2014
For the first time ever, Reporters Without Borders is publishing a list of profiles of “100 information heroes” for World Press Freedom Day (3 May).
Through their courageous work or activism, these “100 heroes” help to promote the freedom enshrined in article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the freedom to “to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” They put their ideals in the service of the common good. They serve as examples.
“World Press Freedom Day, which Reporters Without Borders helped to create, should be an occasion for paying tribute to the courage of the journalists and bloggers who constantly sacrifice their safety and sometimes their lives to their vocation,” said Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Christophe Deloire.
“These ‘information heroes’ are a source of inspiration to all men and women who aspire to freedom. Without their determination and the determination of all those like them, it would be simply impossible to extend the domain of freedom.”
This obviously non-exhaustive list pays homage not only to the 100 famous and less well known people on it, but also to all the professional and non-professional journalists who constantly help to shed light on the world and cover every aspect of its reality. This initiative aims to show that the fight for freedom of information requires not only active support for the victims of abuses but also the promotion of those who can serve as models.
The list of “100 information heroes” comprises women and men of almost all ages (25 to 75) and 65 nations. The youngest, Oudom Tat, is Cambodian and the oldest, Muhammed Ziauddin, is Pakistani. Twenty-five of the heroes are from the Asia-Pacific region, 20 from the Middle East and North Africa, and eight from Europe. Iran, Russia, China, Eritrea, Azerbaijan, Mexico and Vietnam are each represented by at least three heroes.
The lists includes such varied figures as Anabel Hernandez, the author of a bestseller on the collusion between Mexican politicians and organized crime, Ismail Saymaz, a Turkish journalist who has been prosecuted a score of times for his reporting, Hassan Ruvakuki, who was jailed for 15 months in Burundi for interviewing members of a rebel movement, and Gerard Ryle, the head of International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, who has contributed to the emergence of global investigative journalism.
Some work in democracies. They include Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras, US citizens who were responsible for revealing the mass electronic surveillance methods used by the US and British intelligence agencies. Others, such as the Iranian journalist Jila Bani Yaghoob, work under the most authoritarian regimes.
Not all are professional journalists. The Vietnamese citizen-journalist Le Ngoc Thanh, for example, is also a Catholic priest. Many, such as Lirio Abbate, a specialist in the Sicilian mafia, have focused on covering corruption and organized crime. This is the case with Peter John Jaban, a Malaysian radio programme host who spent years in self-exile on London, Serhiy Lechtchenko, an investigative journalist from Ukraine, and Assen Yordanov, a Bulgarian journalist who has been repeatedly threatened.
The profiles also include activists like María Pía Matta, who has worked for nearly ten years for the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC), defending the freedom of community radio stations in Latin America.
Courage is the common denominator. In Uzbekistan, the authorities had no compunction about torturing Muhammad Bekzhanov to extract a confession. In Eritrea, ranked last in the 2014 Reporters Without Borders press freedom index for the seventh year running, Dawit Isaac has languished in the dictator Issayas Afeworki’s jails for the past 13 years. Mazen Darwish, founder of the Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression and winner of the RWB press freedom prize in 2012, has been held for more than two years by the Assad regime.
List of profiles of “100 information heroes”
Here are three Information Heroes of Vietnam
Vietnam / Asia-Pacific
Anton le Ngoc Thanh is a journalist and a Catholic priest. His work for Vietnam Redemporist News, a Catholic news organization for which he has worked since the 1990s, has caused him numerous problems with the Vietnamese authorities. In 2012 he was stopped for questioning on his way to Bac Lieu in the south of the country, where a woman had set fire to herself in protest against her daughter, the blogger Ta Phong Tan, being put on trial. He was held for several hours for causing a traffic accident while travelling on foot. He was arrested again last year during a demonstration in support of the blogger and activist Dinh Nhat Uy, convicted for organizing a campaign for the release of his jailed younger brother. Thanh is under constant police surveillance and is frequently prevented from covering and publicizing the human rights abuses that he has witnessed.
Vietnam / Asia-Pacific
Like others who have seen nomenklatura corruption up close, Pham Chi Dung returned his party card. Instead he devoted himself to writing and developing a critique of Vietnam’s political class, which he knows inside out. He was a military officer for many years and was an aide to Truong Tan Sang in Ho Chin Minh City before Sang became president in 2011. He has written about public security and the dominant cultural, economic and religious ideology. He was arrested on charges of “conspiring to overthrow the government” and “anti-government propaganda” in July 2012 in connection with articles about corruption and the government’s shortcomings, but the investigation was abandoned and he was released seven months later. His PhD in economics, his 11 books and his many interviews for the BBC, RFI and Radio Free Asia still do not protect him. His passport was confiscated as he was about to board a flight to Geneva in February 2014 to attend a conference on rights and freedoms in Vietnam.
Vietnam / Asia-Pacific
After starting out as a reporter for regional police publications, Truong Duy Nhat worked for the daily Dai Doan Ket (Great Solidarity). But he resigned as a state media journalist in 2010 to become a prolific and outspoken blogger, calling his blog – originally truongduynhat.vn and then, a year later, truongduynhat.org – “Another point of view.” He posted more than 1,000 articles, most of them his own, in the space of three years. After four orders to close his blogs, he was finally arrested in May 2013 and sentenced to two years in prison in connection with 12 of his most vitriolic articles. Seven months before his arrest, he wrote: ““I am neither a criminal nor a reactionary. The handcuff and gun should not be used against bloggers who sacrifice their interests to keep outspoken blogs that are helping to change the party and the people.”