WikiLeaks' Kristinn Hrafnsson awarded First Barcelona Human Rights Film Festival Award

[sabrina 1]

http://www.eldebat.cat/cat/notices/2011/06/el_festival_de_cinema_i_drets_humans_de_barcelona_premia_dos_periodistes_de_wikileaks_87031.php%3Futm_source%3Dtwitterfeed%26utm_medium%3Dtwitter">WikiLeaks' Kristinn Hrafnsson awarded First Barcelona Human Rights Film Festival Award



Kristinn Hrafnsson (right) receives Film Festival's Human Rights Award.

The first Human Rights Film Festival of Barcelona, ​​which took place from 8 to 12 June in the city, has awarded the Icelandic journalists and Hrafnsson Kristinn Ingi Ragnar Inganson both partners Wikileaks, the Award International Journalism and Human Rights. The award recognizes his work on journalistic conflicts that violate human rights.

Hrafnsson, investigative journalist, co-founder and spokesperson for Wikileaks, presented at the festival 'Collateral murder: Hellfire, "a documentary about the killing of civilians in Baghdad in 2007, with unpublished material. L'encarregat de concedir-li el premi a ell ia Ingason va ser, precisament, Javier Couso, el germà del càmera de Telecinco, José Couso, assassinat a Bagdad el 2003. The charge of giving him the award for him and Ingason was precisely Javier Couso, brother of the camera Telecinco, Jose Couso, killed in Baghdad in 2003.

I've seen the documentary online, it was incredibly moving. The reporters went to Iraq to find the children who were seen in the original video released by Wikileaks being carried, wounded, from the van by US ground troops. They spoke to the family of the father of those children, who was killed trying to save one of the wounded Reuters journalists.

I tried to find the Documentary online to post here, but get a 'cannot load site' for the Documentary website on both Google and IE.

Below is the only trace I can find of the Documentary. It is a report from Icelandic TV it appears. It is in Icelandic with no translation. But it does show part of the interviews with the children and their family. The recipient of the award, Kristinn Hrafnsson, is also featured in the report.

Warning: Some viewers may find this video (emotionally) disturbing, even if you can’t understand it. In Icelandic.

Little seen ruv report on collateral murder

I am glad that while we hear so little about the pain and heart-break caused to the victims of our wars, the world outside the US is not forgetting the victims or the courageous journalists who risk so much to bear witness to the horror of war. It seems we are being prevented from seeing this brilliant and compassionate documentary unless I am just a very incompetent researcher. Maybe someone else can find it.

Congratulations to Wikileaks for all the awards they have won this year. They may not be popular with Governments who have dark secrets, but we the people need a free press if we are to remain a democracy.

?


"Try as I may I can not escape the sound of suffering. Perhaps as an old man I will accept suffering with insouciance. But not now; men in their prime, if they have convictions are tasked to act on them."-- Julian Assange

[suffragette]

1. K&R

[TriMera]

2. K&R. n/t

[Luminous Animal]

3. K&R

[Hassin Bin Sober]

4. k and r

[sabrina 1]

5. These two soldiers and the widow of the father killed deserve

to be mentioned also. They are the two soldiers seen in the military video who saved the two children who were in the van, wounded by the gunfire. Their mother accepted the soldiers' apology which they made to the Iraqi people, because they 'saved my children' she said:

Widow of Iraqi killed by US troops in video ‘accepts apology’ after letter

Ahlam Abdelhussein Tuman, 33, told The Times that she forgave Ethan McCord and Josh Stieber, who wrote “we acknowledge our part in the deaths and injuries of your loved ones”, because Mr McCord had also rescued her children: Duaa, 7, and Sajad, 13.

In her home yesterday, the two children lifted up their shirts to show bellies cross-hatched with scars sustained in the airstrike that killed their father, along with 11 other Iraqis including two employees of the Reuters news agency.

.....

“I can accept their apology,” Mrs Tuman said, “because they saved my children and if it were not for them, maybe my two little children would be dead.”

The letter explained that “Ethan McCord pulled your daughter and son from the van, and when doing so, saw the faces of his children back home.”

She also asked them to continue their good work “What the soldiers are doing, is very good work, and we hope they continue their good work because I would like the American people and the whole world to understand what happened here in Iraq. We lost our country and our lives were destroyed.”

[Kaleko]

6. Thanks you for posting.

[sabrina 1]

7. You're welcome. I think they are getting all these awards

not just for their work, but it may be the world's way of protecting them, from the US government.

[Kaleko]

8. That is my sense also.

It is taking a stand, saying we won't collaborate with the US crime syndicate and its attempts to silence whistleblowers.

[sabrina 1]

9. Yes, it's shameful that there is a Grand Jury sitting in this

country trying to get an indictment of Julian Assange under the Espionage Act. And I think that if they do, Assange and Wikleaks will be able to point to all these journalistic awards that confirm they are a News organization and prize-winning one at that.

Anyhow, thank you for your comments Kaleko :-)

[Kaleko]

10. Like I said before,

it's bright lights like you who keep me engaged on DU. It's an honor to be on the same page with you on every issue facing us, literally.