Hellman-Hammett Grants
Short Biographies of the 1999 Recipients
Akinwumi Adesokan(Nigeria),
Lanre Arogundade (Nigeria),
Aung Htun (Burma),
Grémah Boucar (Niger), Fabio Castillo (Colombia), Akbar Ganji (Iran),
Hamid-Reza Jalei-Pour (Iran), Paschal Khoo-Thwe (Burma), Niran Malaolu (Nigeria), Goretti Mapulanga (Zambia),
Recep Marasli (Turkey), Patricia McFadden (Swaziland), Khilida Messaoudi (Algeria), Modeste Mutinga Mutuishayi (Democratic Republic of Congo),
Seyeed Ebrahim Nabvi (Iran), Latif Pedram (Afghanistan), Alex Redd (Liberia), Masahallah Shamss-Ol-Vaezin (Iran),
Alieu Sheriff (Sierra Leone and Gambia), Zamira Sydykova (Kyrgyzstan)
Other recipients will remain anonymous because of the dangerous circumstances in which they are living. They include writers from Belarus, Cameroon, China, Eritrea, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Togo, United States, and Vietnam.
The Hellman/Hammett grants are announced each spring. In the nine previous years of the program, more than 350 writers have received grants totaling more than one-and-a-half million dollars.
The Hellman/Hammett funds also make small emergency grants from time to time throughout the year for writers who have an urgent need to leave their country or who find themselves in desperate financial circumstances as a result of political persecution. Again, Sub-Sahara Africa is home to the most grantees. Among them are: Mark Chavunduka and Ray Choto from Zimbabwe; Edith Lianue Gongloe and Alphonos Onso Nyenuh from Liberia; Andrew Koromah, Kevin Lewis, Winston Ojukutu-Macauley, and David Tam-Baryoh from Sierra Leone.
Akinwumi Adesokan (Nigeria), novelist, essayist, and journalist. Mr.
Adesokan and colleagues from The News were detained for a week in 1993.
Thereafter, he worked with the constant threat of arrest. In November
1997 on his return to Lagos from writing fellowships abroad, he was
detained, interrogated, and held incommunicado for two months. His
manuscripts, computer, and money were confiscated. Memories of
incarceration and the political climate around General Abacha's bid for
re-election made it hard to write. After Abacha's death in the summer of
1998, Mr. Adesokan was able to return to UCLA where he spent the year
working on a second novel.
Lanre Arogundade (Nigeria), journalist, was first targeted in 1984 when as
a student leader, he wrote columns opposing the military
government's attempts to restrict academic inquiry and raise university fees. As a result, he was abducted
and imprisoned, and then, in response to student protests, released.
Harassment continued, usually linked to his attendance at international
conferences or when he spoke up for press freedom in Nigeria. In the past
year Mr. Arogundade was arrested three times on unsupported allegations
ranging from gun running to association with illegal organizations. He was
arrested a fourth time in April and charged with murder, a charge that he
and his supporters maintain is motivated by political efforts to undermine
the independent media. He was held for twenty-three days and then released
on bail while he waits for a trial date to be set.
Aung Htun (Burma) was arrested in March 1998 and is serving a fifteen-year
prison term for writing a seven-volume history of the Burmese student
movement. Previously, Aung Htun was actively involved in the August 1988
uprising. In the early 1990s, he spent four years in prison for engaging
in political activities. During that confinement, he was tortured and spent two years in a
solitary prison cell.
Grémah Boucar (Niger), publisher of Anfani newspaper and Anfani magazine,
is also director of Radio Anfani, a leading private broadcast company that
owns three radio stations. In July 1996, soldiers vandalized and closed
Radio Anfani for one month in retaliation for its coverage of the
political opposition during the run-up to national elections. Arrests and
harassment followed. On March 1, 1997, five unidentified men wearing
military uniforms ransacked the station's studios and destroyed newly
installed equipment valued at US $80,000. Boucar, three journalists, and
two security guards were arrested on unspecified charges.
On May 4, 1998, Radio Anfani broadcast a petition condemning government
attempts to intimidate the press, prompting state security officers to
occupy the station. In the summer of 1998, Boucar was kidnapped from his
home and threatened with death. He was released but continues to receive
death threats. In 1998 alone, he was arrested and detained nine times, but
he still refuses to compromise the content of broadcasts on Radio Anfani.
Fabio Castillo(Colombia), journalist, has investigated and reported on
corruption and abuse of power within the international drug trade for
nearly twenty years. During this time, he received many death threats and
was sued repeatedly. In 1986, when El Espectador's publisher was murdered
on orders of Pablo Escobar, leader of the Medellin cartel, Castillo
organized a group of reporters from several papers to publish the same
story on the same day in order to deflect attacks against individual
journalists. Shortly afterwards, editors at El Espectador refused to
publish the findings of one of Castillo's investigations, so he turned the
material into a book called The Cocaine Horsemen. Death threats followed
its publication and forced him into a five-year exile in Spain. He
returned to Colombia in 1993 and resumed writing for El Espectador. In
1998, people close to then-President Ernesto Samper purchased El
Espectador, and Castillo was fired. Since then, he has been trying to
start a magazine of political humor and investigative journalism.
Akbar Ganji (Iran), editor of the weekly news magazine Rah-e No, was held
in incommunicado detention for three months after he gave a speech that
criticized the government, and Rah-e No was closed for publishing articles
that expressed similar criticism. He was released from detention in 1998
but could be taken back into custody at any time in the next five years.
Hamid-Reza Jalei-Pour (Iran) was the publisher of the daily newspaper
Jameh whose reputation for championing reform caused it to be closed.
Within a few days, Mr. Jalei-Pour opened another paper, Tous. It was
promptly accused of being Jameh under another name. Tous continued to
publish despite an attack by Hezbollahi on its editorial offices and
threats of legal action. In September 1998, Mr. Jalei-Pour and his
colleagues were arrested and charged by the Revolutionary Court with
publishing articles "against security and general interests," and then
Tous was closed.
Paschal Khoo-Thwe (Burma), student leader, fled to the jungle when
threatened with arrest for expressing students' opinions. He worked as a
medic in refugee camps and was wounded during an army attack. With the
help of a Cambridge University don, he escaped to Thailand, emigrated to
England, and entered Caius College where he won a rare first for creative
writing in English, his third language. He now works as a cook in London
to support himself while he struggles to write.
Niran Malaolu (Nigeria) was arrested in December 1997 at the offices of
The Diet, an independent newsweekly where he worked as an editor.
Convicted of "information gathering" and "implication in an alleged coup
plot," he was sentenced to life in prison with no right of appeal. In
July 1998, the sentence was reduced to fifteen years. In prison, he
caught typhoid fever and an infection that threatens his eyesight, but
prison officials refused to provide medical care. Appeals for his release
were finally successful in April 1999.
Goretti Mapulanga (Zambia) has read, produced, directed, and edited news
for radio and television. She also anchored the news program, "Good
Morning Zambia." Ms. Mapulanga was fired by the state-run television
station in November 1997. Her husband, Cornelius Mapulanga, an employee
at the same station, was fired the same day. No explanation was provided,
but Ms. Mapulanga thinks a telephone interview with President Chiluba
about privatization set the stage for firing her. Mr. Mapulanga is
thought to have been fired because she would have had undue influence on
the station if he worked there. The Mapulangas were offered positions by
other broadcast outlets but their would-be employers received warnings
from state officials not to hire them and the offers were promptly
withdrawn. Their home is under permanent surveillance. State agents
follow Ms. Mapulanga when she goes out, she's been chased in the streets
by unidentified people, and she and her children have been forced out of
public transportation. The Zambian Human Rights Commission (a state
commission) refused to investigate.
Recep Marasli (Turkey) has written prolifically in prose and poetry on
minority rights and runs a publishing house that specializes in books on
Kurdish culture.
He has been arrested five times and spent many of the last twenty years
in prison where bad treatment and hunger strikes have caused permanent
damage to his health. After his most recent arrest in March 1997, he
spent a year in jail before being acquitted of charges of involvement in
an illegal group. He has left Turkey for the present but still faces
other charges and the threat of re-arrest if he returns.
Patricia McFadden (Swaziland) currently lives in Zimbabwe where she is
known for her work as a writer and feminist activist in the women's
movement, particularly in Southern Africa.
Khilida Messaoudi (Algeria), a feminist political activist, has written a
memoir and published two books of essays and articles. She founded
several women's organizations and organizes against the Family Code which
blatantly discriminates against women. In 1993, Islamists issued a fatwa
against her. Since then, she has survived three assassination attempts and
frequently changes her residence. In 1997, she was elected to the
National Assembly as a representative of the RDC, a small secular
opposition party.
Modeste Mutinga Mutuishayi (Democratic Republic of Congo), editor and
managing director of an independent daily paper, Demain L'Afrique, is also
president of an NGO that promotes peace by educating the public on civic
issues through the press. In the hostile wartime environment that has
prevailed since Kabila assumed power as head of state, Mr. Mutinga's
commitment to report the news objectively has caused repeated detentions
and harassment by national security agents who have often prevented
publication of his newspaper.
Seyeed Ebrahim Nabvi (Iran), writer and political satirist, was arrested
and detained for a month because of articles he wrote for Tous and Jameh
(see Hamid-Raza Jalei-Pour, above).
Latif Pedram (Afghanistan), poet and journalist, was a founder and an
editor of the independent bi-monthly journal, Sobh-i-Omid (Morning of
Hope), that was started in Kabul in 1995, three years after the mujahedeen
took power and installed an Islamic state. After publishing six issues,
Sobh-i-Omid was banned by the government which cited articles by Mr.
Pedram that had criticized policies of the government then in power under
President Burhanuddin Rabbani. Mr. Pedram was also threatened several
times after he published a short book on the need to separate religion
from politics. He moved to Pol-i Khomri where he was responsible for
running the public library. He also set up two independent publications,
a weekly news magazine and a cultural review. In August 1998, two years
after the Taliban seized power in Kabul, he learned that they too were
seeking his arrest and execution. He went into hiding, but his brother
and uncle, who were at his home when the militia arrived, were taken
hostage. The library which contained 55,000 books and old manuscripts was
burned to the ground. Mr. Pedram escaped to France where he currently
lives in exile.
Alex Redd (Liberia), journalist, worked for the News, a newspaper in
Monrovia and then for the radio news show "Sunrise," also in Monrovia.
Redd was arrested several times and labeled an anti-government element for
reporting human rights abuses that angered some government officials. In
December 1997, security forces kidnaped, tortured, and threatened him with
death for investigating the murder of a prominent opposition politician,
Sam Dokie and his family. Mr. Redd was released on bail and staying with
friends when his home was vandalized. Fearing for his life, he fled to New
York. He was granted political asylum in October 1998 and is living in
Madison, Wisconsin, where his family joined him in April 1999.
Hojatolesam Mohssen Saeidzadeh (Iran), a legal scholar who resigned from a
judgeship to research and write about Islamic law, is the author of
numerous newspaper articles and several books including one on Koranic
interpretation that is banned. Mr. Saeidzadeh has argued that Iranian
law's discrimination against women is inconsistent with Sharia. This made
him a target for conservatives in Iran's clerical establishment. He was
arrested in June 1998 and held for four months without charge or access to
counsel. On his release from detention, his status as a clergyman was
rescinded. In October 1998, Iran's Culture and Islamic Guidance ministry
refused to allow publication of his new book, Freedom of Women During the
Time of Mohammad, charging that the book showed disrespect to the prophet
of Islam.
Masahallah Shamss-Ol-Vaezin (Iran), editor of both Jameh and Tous, has
been one of the most outspoken champions of free expression in Iran.
After the closing of Tous in September 1998, he was arrested and detained
for one month by the Revolutionary Court.
Alieu Sheriff (Sierra Leone and Gambia), journalist, was arrested and
detained in his native Sierra Leone for critical reporting on the civil
war. He fled to Gambia and within a year was arrested and abused by
security forces for writing a commentary on the political situation there.
With help from the U.S. ambassador, whom Sheriff met at a USIA-sponsored
workshop, Sheriff obtained a U.S. visa. Security officers detained him at
the airport and almost refused to let him board the plane. Arriving in New
York in December 1994, he was granted asylum in August 1995. Mr Sheriff
entered Hunter College, where he won awards for his work as a student
journalist, and graduated in December 1998. He will begin a master's
degree program at the Columbia School of Journalism in August 1999.
Zamira Sydykova (Kyrgyzstan), journalist, wrote for several newspapers in
Kyrgyzstan and then in 1992, seeing opportunities for free expression and
free enterprise in the new Kyrgyz Republic, she founded its first
independent newspaper, Res Publica. In addition to her duties as editor
in chief, Ms. Sydykova took on several major investigations, including the
1997 exposé of the state gold company. This piece provoked a criminal
libel suit and resulted in an eighteen- month prison sentence.
|
