Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Support jailed journalist

What a strange evening - seeing Alan Johnston hand an Amnesty International human rights award over to long-time NUJ activist Jim Boumelha in the wonderful surroundings of the Royal Horticultural Halls.

The award wasn't for Jim he was, as President of the International Federation of Journalists, collecting it on behalf of the jailed Yemeni journalist Abdelkarim Al Khaiwani. The NUJ is working with the IFJ and Amnesty to bring pressure to campaign for his speedy release and the right to a fair trial. You can take action to help with the campaign here

It was the Amnesty Human Rights Media Awards, a fantastic event recognising the best in human rights journalism. I had been one of the judges in the periodicals category this year and was delighted to see Jo Glanville and the team from Index on Censorship pick up one of the two awards I had judged for their special edition on media freedom (or more accurately lack of it!) in Russia. A brilliant piece of work.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Im working for the release of my friend al-Khaiwani as well and inconjunction with www.hamsaweb.org
started a letter campaign:
http://campaigns.aicongress.org/yemen/

Please feel free to contact me to coordinate or for information or for any assistance I can give you.

thanks!!!!

good regards
Jane Novak
http://armiesofliberation.com

Anonymous said...

Is there a way to find out how many people sent a letter via your portal? Im giving a lot of interviews and would like to mention your efforts as well.