A Kenyan woman speaking out for women in one of the world’s most dangerous regions and a female journalist who exposed an unreported uprising in Saudi Arabia are among the winners of this year’s Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards.
“Our shortlisted nominees are all tackling direct and serious threats to stifle free speech,” said Index on Censorship CEO Jodie Ginsberg. “We were humbled and inspired by their stories, and their dedication to ensuring we can all speak freely.”
Index on Censorship 2015 Freedom of Expression award winners: Rafael Marques de Morais (journalism), Safa Al Ahmad (journalism), Amran Abdundi (campaigning), Mouad “El Haqed” Belghouat (arts) and Tamas Bodoky (digital activism) (Photo: Alex Brenner for Index on Censorship)
Awards are presented in four categories: journalism, arts, campaigning and digital activism. The winners were Saudi journalist Safa Al Ahmad and Angolan reporter Rafael Marques de Morais (journalism – jointly awarded); Moroccan rapper “El Haqed” (arts); Kenyan women’s rights campaigner Amran Abdundi (campaigning); and Hungarian freedom of information website Atlatszo (digital activism).
The crime of free expression
Journalist and campaigner Mariane Pearl, journalism award recipient Rafael Marques de Morais, Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger and journalism award recipient Safa Al Ahmad (Photo: Alex Brenner for Index on Censorship)
Al Ahmad was recognised for her documentary Saudi’s Secret Uprising, which exposed details of an unreported mass demonstration in Saudi Arabia. “Safa Al Ahmad dared to go into places that are difficult for women and for reporters, to bring that information back and share it with the world,” said Turkish author Elif Shafak, one of the five judges. Saudi Arabia is a mystery, even to its own people, said Al Ahmad in her acceptance speech: “Parts of our history is deliberately concealed, the present is muddled with rumours and half-truths. The government-owned and controlled media play a major role in the dissemination of those false realities of ourselves and others. This makes facts a precious commodity in Saudi Arabia.”
Angolan investigative reporter Marques de Morais has been repeatedly prosecuted for his work exposing government and industry corruption and will go on trial on 24 March charged with defamation. “Rafael is a very important individual doing very important work in a very, very difficult environment,” said judge Sir Keir Starmer QC. Marques de Morais dedicated his speech to the Zone 9 group of Ethiopian bloggers currently in jail “for the crime of exercising their right to freedom of expression”.
Doughty Street barrister Keir Starmer, campaigning award recipient Amran Abdundi and Index on Censorship CEO Jodie Ginsberg (Photo: Alex Brenner for Index on Censorship)
The winner in the campaigning category, Amran Abdundi, is a women’s rights activist based in north-eastern Kenya and runs a group helping women along the dangerous border with Somalia, where terrorism and extremist violence dominate. Judge Martha Lane Fox said: “Amran Abdundi was a standout candidate for me. She is doing something incredibly powerful in an unbelievably complicated and dangerous situation.” Abdundi dedicated her award to the “marginalised women of northern Kenya… who will now know that their struggles and their efforts to fight for their rights are being recognised internationally”.
Help us let the world know the truth
Arts category winner Mouad “El Haqed” Belghouat, novelist Elif Shafak and actor Stella Odunlami (Photo: Alex Brenner for Index on Censorship)
Arts category winner Mouad “El Haqed” Belghouat is a Moroccan rapper and human rights activist whose music highlights widespread poverty and endemic government corruption in Morocco. He has been imprisoned on spurious charges three times in as many years, most recently in 2014. Belghouat said in his acceptance speech: “I have been through difficult times: I was jailed, fired from my work, rejected by many friends. I am still forbidden to sing in my own country. But after all that I am still determined that I will never change my position. I will fight for freedom, equality and human rights for ever.” Lane Fox said Belghouat had taken his music and “translated it into a kind of online activism, but then, crucially, mobilised people in the street”.
The digital award, decided by public vote, went to Hungarian investigative news outlet Atlatszo.hu managed by Tamás Bodoky. The website acts as watchdog to a Hungarian government which has increasingly tightened its grip on press freedom in the country. Editor-in-chief Bodoky said Atlatszo.hu called on all those who believe that independent journalism in Hungary is under threat. “All those who agree that politics and business interests have sunk their claws into everyday life. All those who know that taxpayer money is vanishing. We are calling on you to help us let the world know the truth.”
Entrepreneur Martha Lane Fox, digital activism award recipient Tamas Bodoky and actor Jolyon Rubinstein (Photo: Alex Brenner for Index on Censorship)
The awards were presented by the judges along with special guests including Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger.
A special award was also given on the evening to honour the many Azerbaijani journalists and activists jailed or forced into exile or hiding following a recent crackdown by the government. Former award winner and journalist Idrak Abbasov, who was forced to flee Azerbaijan last year, accepted the award on behalf of all those facing persecution in the country. “I call upon the world community to help Azerbaijan… so that our colleagues might be released and that our country might become a normal state in which we and others might live freely,” Abbasov told the audience in a video speech.
The evening featured an exhibition of specially commissioned cartoons by international cartoonists, reflecting on the past 12 months for free expression. Most of the artists had direct experience of persecution over their work, including Syrian political cartoonist Ali Ferzat – a former Index award winner – and Malaysia’s Zunar. “In the wake of the attacks on Charlie Hebdo, we wanted to pay homage to the work of cartoonists who are so often the first to face censorship in any move to stifle free expression,” said Index’s Jodie Ginsberg.
Amran Abdundi is an activist who, through various channels, has worked to make life safer in northeastern Kenya – supporting women who are vulnerable to rape, female circumcision and murder. Despite death threats, Abdundi’s Frontier Indigenous Network (FIN) has set up shelters along the dangerous border between Kenya and Somalia, an area where militant terrorist groups pose a threat to many. Alongside these shelters, FIN also maps out conflict areas, targets the illegal arms trade which fuels local conflict and has set up radio listening groups. As a way of reaching women in remote areas, these circles help to dispel myths about tuberculosis treatment and female property ownership, and to tackle doctrines spread by the area’s terror organisations. She is the recipient of the 2015 Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Award for Campaigning.
I want to thank the judges who selected me for this award after going through so many worthwhile and wonderful nominations that were submitted from around the world. Equally I want to thank Index on Censorship’s staff. I will be eternally indebted to you all.
This award goes to marginalised women of northern Kenya whom I have worked with closely for the last ten years and who have joined hands with me in fighting outdated cultural practices that deny them the right to own property, expose them to dangerous practices like FGM, and threaten them with sexual exploitation.
Women’s rights activist Amran Abdundi (Photo: Alex Brenner for Index on Censorship)
The award also goes to conflict concubines who were abducted by armed youths in the height of armed violence in northern Kenya and acted as comfort women for armed militias. When these women came back from conflict zones with children born out of wedlock, they were rejected by their families. This award is for them.
Society rejected them and they live in separate makeshift areas outside normal settlement areas in northern Kenya. Working together with the conflict concubines we engaged various stakeholders — women leaders, elders, local government officials, cultural leaders and youths in order to open a dialogue. This led to partial acceptance by the community in accommodating them. I am still working in engaging the stakeholders to fully accept them and still hope to integrate the conflict concubines in mainstream society.
This award also goes to women who through my organizational campaign are today enjoying their constitutional right to own property, land and livestock. This is contrary to past practice when all lands, livestocks and properties acquired by women was registered in name of their husbands. Or if the woman was single or widowed, her brother or father’s name. Our campaign and advocacy managed to break that outdated cultural practice.
The award also goes to women victims of armed violence perpetrated by terrorist groups, community militias and gangs along the Kenya/Somalia border. Thugs who have used their armed power to attack, rape, gang rape and block women fleeing droughts from reaching Dadaab refugee camp in northern Kenya. We used our loud speakers to confront the attackers and we documented the abuses along the border.
I have done all these things not to win any award or recognition but because of a grave reality on the ground. A horror which moved me to join hands with other women and form a woman-led organisation called FRONTIER INDIGENOUS NETWORK.
As a founder member I started as community mobiliser and now I am Executive Director. Because of my work and campaigns I have been called many names by those people who are opposed to change. I cannot mention those names here — they are unprintable or not worth mentioning. But this award also goes to them too.
Thank you Index on Censorship for selecting my work in northern Kenya for this award. The women of northern Kenya will now know that their struggles and their efforts to fight for their rights are being recognised internationally.
Today is my birthday and it will be a birthday that I will never forget. It will be in my mind for the rest of my life. You are a true partner of the women of northern Kenya. Thank you.
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]The 2015 Freedom of Expression Campaigning Award-winner is activist Amran Abdundi, who, through various channels, has worked to make life safer in northeastern Kenya – supporting women who are vulnerable to rape, female circumcision and murder.
The women’s rights activist runs the Frontier Indigenous Network, an organisation which mobilises female peace builders and activists along the dangerous border with Somalia.
“The award ceremony was aired by all community radios in northern Kenya and reached many people. I am happy because it will give women courage to stand up for their rights.”
Amran Abdundi is a women’s rights activist based in northeastern Kenya. She runs the Frontier Indigenous Network, an organisation which mobilises female peace builders and rights activists to set up shelters along the dangerous border with Somalia. It offers first aid to the injured as well as to women and girls who have been raped, moving victims to a safer part of Kenya.
As well as protecting citizens endangered by the guerrilla activities of the Al Qaeda-linked group Al Shabaab, Abdundi and her organisation also help those fleeing drought and failed harvests in Somalia. Abdundi is also behind radio-listening groups for women, which share information about access to tuberculosis treatment, among other things.
In a society that teaches women to leave decision-making to men and to look down when men pass, Abdundi’s Frontier Indigenous Network empowers, educates and mobilises rural women to challenge such outdated social codes.
The Al Qaeda-allied Islamist group Al Shabaab has sown terror in the Kenya-Somalia border region, one of the world’s most inhospitable areas. Women in the region are often the victims of violence, rape and murder. The northern region of Kenya is one of deeply conservative social customs, in which a man owns property on a woman’s behalf – even when the woman has bought the land. In the environment Abdundi operates in, a quarter of Kenyan girls and women have endured genital mutilation, despite legislation outlawing the practice.
Abdundi told Index: “I want to see them go to school. I don’t want to see them moving here and there without education – early marriage and female circumcision are also major issues.”
She said that some of the initial challenges the organisation faced have been overcome. In the beginning it was hard to talk to parents about their girls and “how the women have suffered”, she explained. “But now they understand us. They know how good we are and we want to change their lives.”
One of Frontier Indigenous Network’s biggest achievements in 2014 has been in mapping out conflict areas in northern Kenya. It focuses on the factors which fuel armed violence occurring after peace agreements are signed between warring parties. Aware that small arms and light weapons were one of the biggest obstacles to peace in the region, Abdundi and her group mapped many of the weapons used by the combatants. She then instigated a regional agreement to pursue arms traffickers, closing boltholes used by smugglers along the Somali border and developing a register of all recovered weapons. The agreement also targeted a network of groups running an illegal arms trade.
Abdundi has established radio-listening groups specifically for women, in which she encourages them to challenge the repressive cultural values preventing women from being permitted to own property or livestock. She uses the radio groups to reach women with tuberculosis, educating them about access to treatment and breaking cultural beliefs that tuberculosis is caused by curses and bad omens.
Abdundi has also mobilised women along the Kenya-Somalia border to rise against Al-Shabaab, a militant terrorist group, by educating them on the dangers of following the doctrine propagated by the terror organisation; she has received a number of death threats as a result of this work. She has also campaigned against the practice of female circumcision in northern Kenya.
She said: “My dream is to help women, girls and children. I just want to see them doing good. That’s my dream.”
The 2015 Freedom of Expression Campaigning Award-winner is activist Amran Abdundi, who, through various channels, has worked to make life safer in northeastern Kenya – supporting women who are vulnerable to rape, female circumcision and murder.