Journalists Under Threat
Bettie Johnson-Mbayo
Bettie Johnson-Mbayo might not have expected a month-long prison sentence for parking her car. And yet, after Bong County representative Marvin Cole took issue with her and her husband parking near his home in January 2022, an argument erupted. “You need to take control of your wife,” Johnson-Mbayo claims that Cole told her husband.
She believes that what happened next was an attempt to silence her, an investigative journalist who roots out corruption in Liberia, West Africa and puts it under a spotlight.
Rana Ayyub - The Perfect enemy for Narendra Modi’s 'Troll Army' By Sally Patterson
At the time of writing, 37-year-old investigative journalist Rana Ayyub is afraid to leave her Mumbai home for fear of being attacked by armed gangs or by the government whose agents sit and watch from nearby streets.
Katsiaryna Andreyeva and Daria Chultsova: The Battle for Press Freedom in Belarus: By Nathalie Weatherald
On a grey afternoon in Minsk in November 2020, journalists Katsiaryna Andreyeva and Daria Chultsova were filming from an apartment. It looked down onto a courtyard, colloquially known as the ‘Square of Change’, where hundreds were gathered to peacefully demonstrate and demand justice for the death of pro-democracy activist Raman Bandarenka in police custody.
Marcela Turati: Investigating Mexico’s enforced disappearances and mass graves: By Elettra Scrivo
“We’re like war correspondents in our own country. We never have to leave the country to cover a war to learn how to be war correspondents - as we feel as if we’re covering one, and that’s terrible,” says investigative journalist Marcela Turati.
Caroline Muscat: Fighting Corruption in Malta By Flaminia Luck
Caroline Muscat lives her life next to the shadow of her former journalism colleague, Daphne Caruana Galizia, the prominent Maltese investigative journalist who was assassinated in 2017 by a car bomb.
Jineth Bedoya Lima
In 2000, Jineth Bedoya Lima, 49, was a 26-year-old reporter. She had been covering a story on weapons, human trafficking, and corruption at the infamous La Modelo prison in Colombia for three years, during which the threats against her and her mother intensified. When she feared for her safety, the Colombian state told her she was not entitled to protection.
“Jineth was one of the first journalists investigating how the armed conflict had moved into the prison system,” Claudia Duque, a Colombian investigative journalist, International Women Media Foundation (IWMF) Courage in Journalism award recipient, and Bedoya’s friend, says. “Jineth uncovered many stories about massacres inside prisons. That made her a target for threats and, later, her attack.”