Overview

Артыкулы журналістаў - пераможцаў конкурсу "Беларусь у фокусе"

Winners of the Belarus in Focus journalism competition are:

Professional
1. Sam Knight: Inside the Snow Globe 

Sam Knight is a magazine writer. He writes mainly for the Financial Times’ weekend magazine and for Prospect, a British monthly magazine, where he is a contributing editor. He often writes about people and places undergoing profound change and over the last 18 months has covered subjects such as health service reform in the UK, post-crash Iceland, and the arrival of the Olympics in London. His work has appeared in Harper’s, The New York Times and The New Republic. He is currently working on a book about life in Europe during the financial crisis.

Sam first visited Minsk in 2007 to write about the Jacub Kolas Lyceum, a Belarusian language school formally closed down by the authorities in late 2003, but which continued to meet in people’s homes. He cannot remember why he decided to write about Belarus, only that it seemed important to do so, and very hard to figure out. Since then he has returned in 2008, to write about the immediate impact of the financial crisis on the country and then, in December 2010, to cover the presidential elections for Harper’s.

 

2. Shaun Walker: Theatre’s act of defiance in Europe’s last dictatorship 

Shaun Walker is the Moscow Correspondent for the UK’s Independent. He has lived in Moscow since 2003 and worked for The Independent since 2007, reporting on Russia and the former Soviet countries. He has travelled to Belarus many times in the past year. Shaun Walker studied Russian and Soviet history at Oxford University.

3. Polona Frelih: Like Fish in an Aquarium that can Sense the Sea 

Polona Frelih, Moscow correspondent for Slovenian daily Delo. Since 2007 she has been following political, economic, cultural and everyday life in Russia and other countries of the former Soviet Union. She reports on various subjects - from breaking news stories such as the Georgian-Russian conflict in South Ossetia and Abhazia in 2008, daily challenges of the indigenous population of Yamalo-Nenetsk Autonomous Region to the national revival and political repressions in Belarus.
Coming from Slovenia, a relatively small country which in 1991 gained its independence from the former Yugoslavia, Polona has always been interested in the question of how and to what extent national identity is preserved in multinational states. That is what brought her to Belarus in the first place, where she has met many interesting people with one common problem – a political system that is an enemy not only to the Belarus national revival, but also to the basic human rights.
Polona started her career on the news desk of the Slovenian National Television back in 1997, then covering events in the countries of the former Soviet Union and its sphere of influence. She was also the author of the weekly review of world events called the Weekly Mirror and a Slovenian correspondent to the CNN World Report.

 

Citizen journalists
1. Angela Espinosa Ruiz: Spain-Belarus. Contrast of Concerns 

2. Brendan McCall: When Theatre is “Thoughtcrime” 

Brendan McCall (USA) is a theater and movement artist whose work has been presented in over 25 countries on 4 continents since 1993.   He is currently directing an original adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s 'A Doll’s House' in Ankara.
In 2010, he founded Ensemble Free Theater Norway in Oslo , an independent theater group dedicated to new work and international collaboration.  McCall has taught at universities internationally since 1994, including 6 years at the graduate level, and 7 years in administration on 3 continents.  
His articles have appeared in Contemporary Theatre Review, Contact Quarterly Dance Journal, Movement Research Performance Journal, Dance Magainze, and will be including in the upcoming book The Actor´s Checklist: Creating the Complete Character (Cengage) by Dr. Rosary O´Neill. 

McCall has worked with Belarus Free Theater in Minsk and Oslo since 2009.  The candid sharing by co-founders Natalia Koliada and Nikolai Khalezin of their experiences in Minsk, including imprisonment and death-threats; as well as the horrific events surrounding the December 2010 elections in Belarus; inspired McCall to take more action as an educator, activist, and human being.  One of these was the writing of “When Theatre is ´Thoughtcrime´,” published in Contemporary Theatre Review (United Kingdom) in 2011.

3. Kiryl Kascian: Assisting a Little-known Nation 

Kiryl Kascian, LL.M. - PhD candidate in Law at the University of Bremen, Germany; web-editor of "Belarusian Review", a quarterly established by the Belarusian-American Association; author of various scholarly and analytical articles, book chapters, as well as book reviews in English, German and Belarusian. Research and journalist interests cover predominantly law and politics of Central and Eastern Europe and newly independent states with a particular focus on Belarus.

The following articles have been recommended by the judging panel for publication in a Belarusian-English book resulting from the competition (authors listed in alphabetical order): 
Ulrike Gruska: Otherwise you go mad
Gesine Dornblueth: Is the end of Lukashenka’s regime coming soon? 
James Kirchick: In Belarus, Alexander Lukashenka is Playing at Reform 
James Kirchick: Mayhem in Minsk a dispatch from inside President Lukashenko’s brutal election crackdown.

Katarzyna Kwiatkowska: Black Days in Belaya Rus 
Ugis Libietis: Minsk – silent protests and detention 
Michal Potocki: Lukashenka’s regime in utter ruins, Belarus clutched by crisis 
Shaun Walker: Bad Times in Belarus 
Shaun Walker: Truth behind the pageantry: jail for dissidents in Europe’s last dictatorship 

The competition winners have been invited to a workshop (February 20-21, 2011) in Warsaw. During the workshop, there will be a press conference at which winners will be presented their awards .

 
Many thanks to all who participated in the competition!

 

Held by Solidarity with Belarus Information Office in collaboration with Press Club Polska, Belarus in Focus is a competition for European journalists writing on Belarusian issues. Since the 2010 presidential elections in Belarus, when over 700 people were arrested for participating in peaceful protests, including 7 presidential candidates, major social and economic changes have been taking place. Belarus in Focus consists of two categories: for professional journalists and for citizen journalists. Deadline for entries: November 15, 2011.

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Judges

Andrej Dynko

NN.BY / Nasha Niva editor is the laureate of several international awards, including Lorenzo Natali Award (EU, 2007), Oxfam-Novib / PEN Freedom of Expression Award (2006) ), the Russian First Channel Award for Journalistic Courage and Professionalism (2006) and the Hanno Ellenbogen Citizenship Award (Czech Republic, 2003). Andrej was a lecturer at Minsk University before he moved into journalism as a reaction to freedom of speech violations. His latest book is "Baptism of a Nation: Mass Rallies in Belarus in 1988-2009", co-edited with Valer Bulhakau and Andrej Kazakievich. Andrej is a member of the Belarusian Association of Journalists.

Yuliya Slutskaya

Following Belarus’ 2010 presidential elections, Yuliya Slutskaya set up the Solidarity with Belarus Information Office in Warsaw, Poland. Director of European Radio for Belarus’ office in Minsk from 2007 to 2010, Yuliya also coordinated the European Commission’s project ‘Window on Europe’ in Belarus during this time. Between 1994 and 2006, she was the editor-in-chief of Komosomolskaya Pravda v Belarusi, a major independent Belarusian newspaper. In 2010, Yuliya was a media consultant for the ‘’Speak the Truth’’ campaign headed by Uladzimir Nyaklyaeu.

Tony Howson

Tony Howson has been a journalist for over thirty years. For the last 15 years he has worked for BBC World Service Training and later BBC World Service Trust as a consultant and media trainer. A lot of that time has been spent in the former Soviet Union and this year he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the journalism faculty of the University of Uzghorod in Ukraine. His career started in newspapers, having trained with the National Council for the Training of Journalists in Britain before he became a senior producer with the BBC. His current work involves travel around the globe. In the last few years he has been working in Gaza, Yemen, Angola, Sierra Leone and Tanzania. He is 55 years old with three sons and a granddaughter. He said:"In a world where journalism standards are constantly under scrutiny, I am pleased to be involved in judging this competition and will be looking for high quality work."

Oliver Money-Kyrle

Oliver Money-Kyrle is the Assistant General Secretary of the International Federation of Journalists. He has been with the IFJ since 1998 where he worked as the press officer before becoming responsible for projects in Former Yugoslavia and the wider Balkans, in Central Asia, the Caucasus, Ukraine, Russia and Belarus. In recent years he has worked closely with the Belarus Association of Journalists on a range of campaigning activities for journalists.

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