Courage Awards: 1999 Courage Award Winners
Sharifa Akhlas, Afghanistan
Kim Bolan, Canada
Aferdita Kelmendi, Kosovo
Sharifa Akhlas was born and educated in Afghanistan, but now works in exile as a radio and television producer and reporter for the Afghan Media Resource Center (AMRC) based in Peshawar, Pakistan.
In the early 1990s, Akhlas saw the status of women deteriorating because of hostilities in Afghanistan and began producing stories on human rights issues. And when the Taliban began instituting bans on working women in Afghanistan, she began to work secretly for the AMRC, seeking international distribution of her reports on human rights, women and children.
In order to avoid detection by the Taliban, Akhlas and her family moved frequently. Her clandestine reporting was discovered more than once, most recently in 1998 - she was arrested and beaten. Her husband and father had to promise to keep her from reporting, or face arrest themselves. Of these attempts at intimidation, Akhlas says, "I didn't feel threatened, but found it as an opportunity to make a story."
She subsequently escaped to Pakistan with her family, but continues to move around to avoid detection. In her current work with the AMRC, Akhlas furtively travels back into Afghanistan, risking her life to interview women and bring news to the international community. In April 2000, she was arrested and beaten after being caught by the Taliban once again. After being released, Akhlas returned to Pakistan where she reports that she will continue her work.
Return to top of page
Kim Bolan has been a reporter for The Vancouver Sun since 1984. In the past 15 years, she has covered wars in El Salvador, Guatemala and Afghanistan, but Bolan is best known for her coverage of the Sikh community in Vancouver, Canada.
Her reports have led to critical breaks in the 1985 bombing of an Air India jet and a police investigation of a local independent school controlled by several suspects in the bombing. Since December 1997, Bolan has received death threats by mail, telephone and local Punjabi-language radio shows in conjunction with these stories. In February 1999, police received information that Bolan was on a hit list circulating among Sikh fundamentalists in Vancouver.
Under these circumstances, "it has been extremely difficult for my work to continue," she says. But Bolan's work does continue, although she is now under police supervision, and is escorted on assignment. Her sources are reporting that charges are soon to be filed in the Air India bombing and Bolan says she plans to cover the trials.
Return to top of page
Aferdita Kelmendi
Pristina, Kosovo
Aferdita Kelmendi began her career working for Radio Pristina, a station controlled by the Yugoslav government. But when communism fell and gave way to civil war in the former Yugoslavia, she saw a need to educate youth in non-violence.
Kelmendi co-founded the Media Project in 1995, aiming to train young girls in journalism, Internet skills and conflict resolution. In 1998, she became director of Radio/TV 21, the only independent station in Pristina and part of the Media Project. Since the station was not able to obtain a broadcasting license from the government, in January 1999 Kelmendi decided to transmit news via the Internet.
Her work was soon interrupted. In the span of a few days in March 1999, Kelmendi watched as her station was destroyed, found that a colleague had been killed and learned she was on a hit list. She escaped from Kosovo with her family and initially went to a deportee camp in Macedonia. From there, the family relocated to Skopje, Macedonia, where Kelmendi quickly re-established transmission on borrowed equipment and began broadcasting in exile.
But she wanted to go back "to help give people their voice back…I know we can start over even though we have nothing." When the fighting subsided, Kelmendi returned to Pristina and on July 15, 1999, began live radio transmissions - Radio/TV 21 is the first Albanian-language station to broadcast from Kosovo.
By early 2000, Radio/TV 21 had completed work on a television studio and was preparing to begin production of independent political talk-shows.
Return to top of page