|
Famous photographer Umida Akhmedova threatened with imprisonment |
|
|
 The Russian Union of Journalists and the international Zhurnalistika club are deeply concerned about the charges brought by the Uzbek Ministry of Internal Affairs against Umida Akhmedova. A famous journalist and photographer, Akhmedova is the first woman cameraman in Uzbekistan.
She graduated from GITIS (The State Institute of Theatrical Arts) in Moscow, won the 2006 Grand Prix of the Inter-press "Photo of Russia" competition, and is well known to the public through her exhibitions in Petersburg, Moscow and Copenhagen. Akhmedova’s documentaries have acquainted wide audiences with life in contemporary Uzbekistan, and with the country’s culture and customs. Her 2007 photo collection “Women and Men, From Dawn to Sunset” was highly praised by the critics. It is all the more surprising and disturbing, therefore, that this superb collection, which is permeated by sincere respect for ordinary men and women, should have prompted the Uzbek Agency for the Press and Information to approach the Ministry of Internal Affairs in mid-December and begin a criminal investigation of its author.
The claim is that the work insults national pride and constitutes defamation of the Uzbek nation. Such a charge could lead to imprisonment from between 6 months and 2 years. As the Ferghana.ru news agency reports, similar accusations have been levelled at other authors working within the framework of the gender programme of the Swiss Embassy in Uzbekistan.
Umida Akhmedova has long been a good friend of the Zhurnalistika club, and participated in international programmes organised by the RUJ and the International Federation of Journalists, among them the 27th IFJ congress in Moscow, and the “Women journalists in conflict zones as promoters of peace” conference which was jointly sponsored by Unesco and the IFJ.
We appeal to the gender council of the IFJ to support and defend Umida Akhmedova and her work from these unjust and fabricated accusations.
|
