Steven Vincent

Steven Vincent

Steven Vincent was a New York art journalist who turned war reporter after witnessing 9/11 first hand from his apartment rooftop. He went to Iraq as a freelance and had been living for several months in Basra, wanting to report on stories that no-one else was covering. While there, he began to uncover an increasingly dark side to the ‘Serene South’, as The New York Times referred to the British-controlled sector of Iraq. A steadily-growing tide of violent Islamic fundamentalism, fueled by followers of the radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and Iranian infiltrators was beginning to overwhelm Basra and its environs.

On July 31 2005, Steven had an op-ed piece published by the New York Times regarding the infiltration of the Basra police force by Iranian-backed Shia fundamentalists: In it, he exposed the fact that rogue elements on the force had formed assassination squads and were driving through the city, snatching and killing their victims with impunity. Two days later, he and his translator were kidnapped off the street by men in police uniforms, driving a police vehicle, taken to an undisclosed location, beaten and then shot. His translator Nour al-Khal survived: Steven died.

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Massoud Ansari

Massoud Ansari

Karachi-based Massoud Ansari is Senior Reporter with Newsline, one of Pakistan’s leading newsmagazines. He also strings for the London Sunday Telegraph and contributes to the US-based New Republic magazine, Jane’s Defense weekly digest and the New Delhi-based Women Feature Service. Since 1998, he has been reporting widely across Pakistan and Afghanistan covering stories about Al-Qaeda and the network of the militant organization, politics, political crimes, rise of religious fundamentalism, environment or poppy cultivation, ethnic and sectarian violence or human rights including slavery of peasants under feudal landlords, ritual killings of the women in the name of honor or about religious and sexual minorities.

Ansari began his career in journalism at the age of 19 in the highly political Sindh town of Larkana, home of slain premier Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and his daughter Benazir. In spite of its international significance, Ansari maintains people in Larkana look down upon journalists as blackmailers, racketeers and sycophants in the service of the local administration. Chased out of the town for his exposes on rape, religious zealotry and abuses of power, he re-settled in Karachi –one of the world’s most dangerous cities for an investigative reporter. It was here that Ansari wrote his series of stories which won him the Kurt Schork Award for International Journalism 2006. These included his investigation into the facts behind the murder of journalist Daniel Pearl and the Pakistan connection to the 7/7 bombings in London last year.

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