Editor's Note: Periodically, throughout the next few months, DI News will be re-publishing some of the best photo essays from issues that have not previously appeared on our new website.
This week:
Dispatches International photographer Jan Grabek spent one month in Kirkuk, Iraq during the summer of 2010. Arriving immediately after American troops had left most of the country. He captured photographs of the mundane in a city on edge.
By Shantal Otchere
In February of 2006, the Toronto Star newspaper published a report on racial profiling, which was part of an ongoing series called “Race Matters.” This report confirmed that males of African descent were three times more likely than any other group to be stopped, questioned and have their information recorded by police.
Many people who have been unreasonably stopped by police report that they had to surrender personal details, including their physical description, address, age, and name, in addition to their friend’s names and physical descriptions, to be kept for police records. According to the Toronto Star’s report, “Race, age and gender are big factors in who gets stopped.”
For 22-year-old Jordan Thoms and those who live in his neighborhood, being unreasonably stopped and questioned by police is a regular occurrence. Thoms recalls feeling uneasy about leaving his home sometimes for fear of being 'harassed' by a police officer.
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By Sanjoy Shubro
People who live in the coastal areas of Bangladesh are always at risk of river erosion, cyclones, floods and other natural disasters. Displaced from their homes, they are forced to leave smaller villages and find refuge in the cities.
Motijhorna is a place in the city of Chittagong where refugees flock from islands that are most affected by climate change, like Vhola, Noyakhai, Hatia and Shandip. Motijhorna has an extremely low cost of accommodation but because most refugees live under the hills, landslides are a common danger.
“We have to die,” says 35-year-old Rahima, a garment worker and refugee. “Here we are dying for landslide but in our village we were dying for poverty or natural disaster. It is better to die in a second by a landslide, rather than suffer from poverty or natural disaster.”
Dispatches International photographer, Sanjoy Shubro, captured images of Motijhorna's accommodations, as well as the daily activities of its residents, emphasizing how natural disasters affect communities throughout the world.
By Fahmida Zaman
“I just became numb when we saw the news of the heartbreaking accident, where around 45 students aged eight to eighteen died in Mirsarai, Chittagong on July 11th, 2011,” says Asif Rahman, a secondary student in Bangladesh.
“Then on August 13th, 2011, when I saw the news of the death of the two most talented media personalities – director Tareq Masud and cinematographer Mishuk Munier – it made me so frustrated and angry,” he recalls.
The deaths of the 45 students and two media personalities were just a couple of the news items that grabbed the attention of Bangladeshi media in 2011. These tragedies have become some of the most common news reports in the daily papers.
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Editor's Note: Periodically, throughout the next few months, DI News will be re-publishing some of the best photo essays from issues that have not previously appeared on our new website.
This Week: Melanie Aronson reports from the West Bank
Bil’in is a small Palestinian village outside of Ramallah in the West Bank. Every friday, since 2005, Palestinian protestors have gathered to participate in a protest against a wired fence that demarcates and divides Palestinian-occupied land from Israeli settlements. It has come to further symbolize a resistance against the larger wall that divides the two peoples. Over the years, the fence has been relocated to envelop more of the Palestinian land.
As the protest has become more recognized, Israeli and international peace activists, journalists, photographers, and filmmakers have contributed to the environment of this ritual demonstration. Due to its longevity, the protest has become somewhat of a routine, even theatrical. After the afternoon prayer, protestors gather and begin a peaceful, yet vocal progression toward the Israeli barrier. Once reached, Palestinian rock-throwing initiates the fighting. An experienced Palestinian announcer with a megaphone assesses the situation and warns and directs protestors accordingly. Though predictable, people are often injured and deaths have occurred.
Palestinians use slingshots and throw stones, while Israeli soldiers retaliate with tear gas canisters, rubber bullets, and trucks that spray sewer water. After a few hours, the protest gradually dwindles and people retreat back to their homes as if their weekly duties have been fulfilled.
By Abdu Kiyaga
It is 2:30pm in Kampala, Uganda's capital, and the temperature has hit 28 degrees Celsius with the sun at its most acute angle of the day.
Meanwhile, in such scorching sunshine, children between the ages of eight and twenty are standing and sitting along the city’s busiest highway, Kampala-Jinja road, waiting for traffic so that they can flock to car windshields asking for whatever the drivers or passengers can give them.
Not many of these drivers are willing to help the dirty children, however, who are usually dressed in filthy clothes covered in patches. Despite the heat that comes from the tarmac, the children usually have no shoes on their feet.
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Editor's Note: Periodically, throughout the next few months, DI News
will be re-publishing some of the best photo essays from
issues that have not previously appeared on our new website. This Week: Dispatches International staff photographer Muhammad Furqan, traveled to four provinces of Pakistan while capturing the diversity of environment and culture, hoping to provide a new angle of interest to Pakistan: its unique, ecologically diverse regions.
Editor's note: While continuing his travels throughout South America in March 2012, Dispatches International staff photographer Geraint Rowland captured the scenery and inhabitants of La Paz, Bolivia.
By Alessandra Lacaita
Photo credits: author.
Photo captions from left to right: A man sells The Big Issue; Norwich manager of The Big Issue, Jim Graver; Vendor Simon Gravell; Vendor Steve King
“I don't know much about the The Big Issue but it helps me,” says 44-year-old Lizzie Ryan, as she tries to hold back her tears. She sells The Big Issue magazine in the streets of Norwich in the UK while trying to do her best to combat her alcohol addiction. Since she has started selling The Big Issue she feels she can improve her life and, despite the bad memories and the difficulties she has, Ryan maintains a bright personality.
Simon Gravell knows this story well. He has been working as a magazine seller for two and a half years. “It’s the best thing I have done in the last few years,” he says with the smile that makes him a successful vendor.
He tells Dispatches International that the idea of the The Big Issue magazine came from the United States but started in London 20 years ago because of Gordon Roldick and John Bird, two men who fronted the money for the magazine.
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By Frederic Musisi
'Kill the gays' legislation is resurrected in Parliament
At the age of 13, Wendy ‘M’ lost her childhood. Just a week after the burial of her mother, she was left in the care of the only person she knew and became subject to all kinds of sexual abuses by her biological father—abuse which lasted until she was 15 years old.
Wendy is 23 now and she is paranoid of male companions. The only way that she can engage in sexual activity is with other females. She identifies as a lesbian, and this is known by only a few others, as she strives to keep this identification undetected. “I wasn’t born this way, but circumstances made me. I love it, because it’s who I am now and I can’t turn back time,” Wendy states.
Previously living in Kanyanya, a suburb of Kampala City, she was forced to change her residence to another place days just days after the 2009 Anti-Homosexuality Bill was recently resurrected in the Ugandan Parliament in February 2012. This bill has tough consequences for homosexual behavior, and even includes the death penalty for accused 'culprits'.
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