London – April 11, 2018
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has launched an international campaign on Tuesday, April 10, 2018 at 10:00 (CET) that aims to collect a maximum of photographs on social networks with the hashtag #MyPicForShawkan, like the portrait of Shawkan who mime taking a picture behind the cage from the bench of the accused to the court. The campaign relayed in the 12 countries where RSF is represented.
Several personalities have already agreed to take part in the campaign. Among them, the famous photographer Yann Arthus Bertrand, and many more (see list below).
“Faced with the urgency and seriousness of the situation, we decided to launch this solidarity campaign on social networks. We know the power of a popular movement on the web and we know its effectiveness to move the lines. If we succeed in mobilizing thousands of people around the planet, the Egyptian government will not be able to ignore our call, “said Christophe Deloire, Secretary General of Reporters Without Borders.
Mahmoud Abu Zeid, better known by the pseudonym Shawkan, was arrested in August 2013 while covering for the Demotix agency the bloody dispersal by the police of the pro-Mursi demonstrations on the Rabaa Al-Adawiya square. Cairo in Egypt. On March 3, the Egyptian prosecutor’s office demanded the death penalty against the photographer.
Photographers and journalists supporting the campaign:
– Jean-François Leroy, founder of the Photojournalism Festival Visa pour l’Image
– Patrick Baz, Pauline Beugnies, Samuel Bollendorf, William Daniels, Laurence Geai, Guillaume Herbaut, Seif Kousmate, Catalina Martin-Chico, Ammar Abd Rabbo, Mélanie Wenger …
– the MYOP agency
– Hans Lucas Studio
– Groups of photographers Argos, Collective item, Riva press
– journalists Dimitri Beck, Wolf Bureau, Auberi Edler, Claude Guibal, Stephen Huver, Lucas Menget, Thomas Misrachi, Clémentine Sarlat …
And the whole RSF team.
https://rsf.org/fr/campagnes/reporters-sans-frontieres-rsf-et-la-communaute-des-photographes-se-mobilisent-pour-le
