Courage Awards: 1997 Courage Award Winners
Bina Bektiati, Indonesia
Corinne Dufka, United States
Maribel Gutierrez Moreno, Mexico
Bina Bektiati
Jakarta, Indonesia
Bina Bektiati began reporting about politics for the independent newsweekly Tempo in 1991. In 1994 the magazine was banned and its license revoked by the Suharto regime. A government-controlled publication replaced Tempo, but Bektiati refused to join. Instead, she challenged the ban in the courts and helped found the Alliance of Independent Journalists, Indonesia's only independent journalists association.
Like many journalists, Bektiati was unable to find work in Indonesia and, in 1995, moved to Australia. She returned to Jakarta in 1996 and helped form the Institute for the Study of Free Flow of Information, researching and writing books on current affairs.
Bektiati continued writing about politics - often under an assumed by-line - and covered the protests leading up to the fall of Suharto and installation of President Habibie in 1998.
The new government has instituted modest reforms and in late 1998, Tempo was re-established. Bektiati has returned to her position with the magazine.
Return to top of page
Before becoming a photojournalist, Corinne Dufka spent ten years as a social worker. Her interest in photojournalism began while working in El Salvador for a humanitarian organization providing mental health services to the victims of civil war. She found that photography allowed her to document the human rights abuses experienced by civilians and she began freelancing.
In 1989, Dufka joined Reuters in El Salvador and went on to Bosnia, then conflict-ridden countries in Africa, becoming Reuters' chief photographer for East Africa. In addition to the IWMF Courage in Journalism Award, Dufka has received other recognition for her work, including a Pulitzer Honorable Mention. She is on leave from Reuters to work with Human Rights Watch - Africa Division and is posted in Freetown, Sierra Leone, documenting human rights abuses.
Of the Courage in Journalism Award, Dufka tells the IWMF that "the biggest impact of receiving this award has been the attention it has brought to the types of conflicts I cover, civil war and ethnic strife. However," she added, "it is becoming increasingly difficult to get agencies (wire and otherwise) to commit resources to pay for covering conflict; particularly in the third world."
Return to top of page
Maribel Gutierrez Moreno
Guerrero, Mexico
Throughout her 20-year career, Maribel Gutierrez has been deeply involved in covering the experiences of rural and Indian communities in Mexico and especially in the state of Guerrero, one of the poorest in Mexico. In 1993, she co-founded El Sur, an independent newspaper covering local news, human and political rights, militarization, corruption and social problems, in a state where almost all press is under government control.
Since its inception, El Sur has endured a campaign of intimidation. In June 1995, Gutierrez wrote a series of extensive and independent articles covering the massacre of 17 unarmed peasants. The paper's coverage helped reveal the role of the government in the massacre and led to the resignation of Guerrero's governor. Because of her reports, Gutierrez has been blacklisted and threatened.
Gutierrez continues her work at El Sur and focuses on regional coverage. She recently wrote on the forced sterilization of indigenous people as a form of ethnic extermination, and on civil rights violations by the army. Gutierrez has also written a book on violence in Guerrero. She says, "Even under adverse conditions, we must defend at every moment the right to information and freedom of expression."
Return to top of page
Blanca Rosales Valencia
Lima, Peru
Blanca Rosales launched her journalism career writing a column for Marka magazine on labor rights issues and, in 1996, became editor-in-chief of La Republica, one of Peru's largest daily papers. As the relationship between the press and the government of Alberto Fujimori continues to erode, journalists are regularly threatened. In 1997, Rosales was one of those targeted when she was abducted and held at gunpoint for several hours.
Since reporting her belief that the Peruvian Secret Service was behind her kidnapping, Rosales has been declared a threat to national security and has been the target of a national television campaign to discredit her. She has suffered from panic attacks and works under the protection of two bodyguards.
Rosales was promoted to sub director of La Republica shortly after receiving the Courage Award, but in January 2000 switched to broadcasting and hosted a political television program focusing on the presidential elections in Peru. She reports that pressures on the independent press continue.
Return to top of page
Anna Zarkova is chief of the Criminal News Department for Trud Daily. She has been awarded national prizes for her stories exposing organized crime, police violence and corruption, but has also received threats because of these articles.
In May 1998 the threats turned to reality when Zarkova was attacked. She was severely burned when a man threw sulfuric acid on her while she was waiting for a bus. From her hospital bed following the attack, she implored her fellow journalists not to be deterred: "Colleagues, for us there is no other way. If they don't splash acid in your face as a journalist, tomorrow they will kill you in the street as a citizen."
Zarkova received burns on the left side of her face and body, and the damage to her left eye was so severe, it had to be removed in 1999. An arrest has yet to be made in the attack, but police suspect a man connected to Bulgaria's underworld.
She is determined to keep fighting. "Before our nine-year-old Bulgarian civil society had a chance to walk steadily, it was endangered by the outburst of the criminal revolution. Many Bulgarian journalists felt that they should step to the front line and join the fight to save their country from the criminal Mafia. I was wounded in the battle, but I managed to survive… I believe that free speech can only be possible if we keep in mind the romantic phrase of the Three Musketeers: 'One for all and all for one!'"
Return to top of page