Courage Awards: 2007 Courage Award Winners

Lydia Cacho, Mexico
Serkalem Fasil , Ethiopia

McClatchy Bagdad Bureau
Huda Ahmed, Shatha al Awsy,
Sahar Issa, Alaa Majeed,
Zaineb Obeid and Ban Adil Sarhan, Iraq

A correspondent for CIMAC news agency and a feature writer for Dia Siete magazine, Mexican journalist Lydia Cacho has endured numerous death threats because of her work reporting on domestic violence, organized crime and pedophilia.

Cacho, 44, is also a human rights advocate. She is the founder and director of the Centro Integral de Atención a las Mujeres in Cancún, a crisis center and shelter for victims of sex crimes, gender-based violence and trafficking.

Cacho began her career in the mid-1980s, when she worked for the cultural section of the newspaper Novedades de Cancún . In the 1990s she wrote articles about the prostitution of Cuban and Argentine girls in Cancún. From 1994-1999, Cacho hosted a public radio program called Estas Mujeres [These Women], and she anchored the television program Esta Boca es Mía [This Mouth is Mine] from 2000-2005. During this time, Cacho also wrote a political analysis column called Interludio [Interlude], which ran for 12 years in various magazines and newspapers in Mexico.

Cacho’s books include Mujer Delfin [Dolphin Woman], a poetry book published in 1997, and Muerdele El Corazon [Bite the Heart], a novel published in 2005 about a woman who is HIV positive.

In 2004, Cacho published Los Demonios del Edén [The Demons of Eden], a book based on her research on child pornography among Mexican politicians and businessmen. A year later, she was arrested on libel charges and driven to a jail 20 hours from her home in Cancún, with officers hinting that there was a plan to rape her. Cacho paid a fine and was freed; she later filed a successful counter-suit for corruption and violation of human rights.

In recent years, Cacho has written extensively about pedophiles. In February 2006, a recording of a conversation between a businessman and a Mexican governor discussing a plan to have her arrested and raped was obtained by the media. Several years earlier, in 1998, Cacho was raped and beaten in the bathroom of a bus station. She suspects the attack was related to her work.

On May 8, Cacho alleged that her car was tampered with in an attempt to cause an accident. Her bodyguards discovered that the nuts had been loosened on one of the wheels, nearly causing the car to crash. The attack came just days after Cacho testified at the trial of accused pedophile Jean Succar Kuri, one of men she wrote about in her book. During the trial, Kuri’s lawyer attacked Cacho for writing her book. Kuri complained that he was in jail because of Cacho and that he would do away with her.

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• Ethiopian journalist and former publisher Serkalem Fasil was arrested in November 2005 and charged with treason and outrages against the constitution, charges that carry terms of life imprisonment or the death penalty. Her arrest came after her newspapers published articles critical of the Ethiopian government’s conduct in the May 2005 parliamentary elections. On the day of her arrest, Fasil, who was pregnant, was severely beaten by police.

Fasil, 27, was one of 14 editors and reporters of independent and privately-owned newspapers who were arrested and similarly charged.

Following demonstrations in June and November 2005 protesting against alleged election fraud, the Ethiopian government conducted mass arrests of journalists and opposition party members. More than 80 opposition supporters were killed by security forces.

In June 2006, while still being held at Kaliti prison in Addis Ababa, Fasil gave birth to a son, Nafkot, who was premature and underweight due to inhumane conditions and lack of proper medical attention. She was forced to care for him in a cell infested with rats, cockroaches and fleas.

Fasil’s husband and co-publisher of Satenaw, Eskinder Nega, was also arrested in November 2005. He was moved from Kaliti prison to Karchele prison in August 2006 and was not allowed to see his son.

Fasil was released from prison in April; Ethiopia’s High Court tossed out the genocide charges against her, rejecting the government's claim that press coverage had harmed the Tigrayan ethnic group. But in July, the government appealed her acquittal to the Supreme Court and brought new charges against her. This time she was charged as an editor rather than as a publisher, posing a significant new threat. She briefly went to Kenya but has since returned to Ethiopia because the Supreme Court isn’t scheduled to hear the case until November. If the Supreme Court agrees with the prosecutor, Fasil will be tried again. The implications of the charges are not yet clear.

Prior to her arrest, Fasil wrote for and was the publisher of three weekly newspapers: Asqual, Menelik and Satenaw, which were shut down at the time of her arrest. Only a few independent newspapers in Ethiopia continue to publish, practicing self-censorship and avoiding strong criticism of the government.

Fasil began her career in journalism as a reporter at Wenchef newspaper in 1997. By 1998, she had established her own publishing house and founded Menelik newspaper. In 2001, Fasil began a second newspaper, Asqual; in the same year, she became deputy editor of Menelik, a position she held until her arrest. Fasil started a third newspaper, Satenaw, in 2004, and in 2005 was named chairwoman of Satenaw’s editorial board.

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Huda Ahmed, Shatha al Awsy, Sahar Issa, Alaa Majeed, Zaineb Obeid and Ban Adil Sarhan, Iraq

In the midst of the war in Iraq, the women of McClatchy’s Baghdad bureau risked their lives just to get to work. Driven by the desire to report to the world about the situation in their country, they became the backbone of bureau.

Since the war began in 2003, Iraq has become the deadliest country in the world for journalists. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, more than 100 journalists have been killed, approximately 80 percent of whom were Iraqi journalists. The conflict is the bloodiest for journalists since World War II.

Constantly under duress, the McClatchy reporters have dodged gun battles and tiptoed around car bombs just to do their jobs. They’ve been targeted for their work. They’ve lost family members and friends. Their homes have been destroyed.

• Shatha al Awsy – Awsy has narrowly missed homemade bombs and has avoided gun battles and car bombs, all the while managing tough interviews with government officials and members of parliament. Once, when more than 40 families were killed at an illegal checkpoint, she reported even as she mourned. Because of ongoing threats and the perpetual fear that someone would find out what she did for a living and have her killed, she was forced to destroy all documents that indicated her identity and leave Iraq.
  
  
• Zaineb Obeid – A single mother of two, Obeid nearly died when a bomb-laden vehicle detonated near her on her way to work. She was thrown into the air and temporarily lost her hearing. She returned to work only days later.
  
  
• Huda Ahmed – Often sleeping in the office to cover late-breaking news after curfew, Ahmed would awaken each day only to start all over again. She covered the battle in Najaf in 2004 and compiled eyewitness accounts of a bombing in Musayyib before she allowed herself to grieve over violence sure to continue. Ahmed is the 2006-07 IWMF Elizabeth Neuffer Fellow.
  
  
• Ban Adil Sarhan – Though she had no previous journalism training, Sarhan doggedly reported, even up to days before the birth of her son. In 2004, insurgents gunned down her husband, daughter and mother-in-law, and Ban continued to receive threats on her own life. She narrowly escaped from Baghdad and now lives in Oklahoma with her son.
  
  
• Alaa Majeed – Bold and unconventional in reporting, Majeed has found and led others to extraordinary stories and embraced journalism as a means to help her country. She proved adept at understanding politics and was unafraid to pursue tough stories about the government, even in a time of turmoil.
  
  
• Sahar Issa – An ambitious reporter, Issa tells tales of grief and destruction, even though they’ve struck all too close to home. Her eldest son was caught in a crossfire in late 2005; he was shot and killed instantly. Issa has also faced going to the morgue to claim the body of a nephew who was killed in a market bombing. She found his body in two pieces. Issa continues to report from McClatchy’s Baghdad bureau.

The reporters at McClatchy’s Baghdad bureau contribute to a blog at: http://washingtonbureau.typepad.com/iraq .

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