A conversation with photojournalist Ali Arkady
This event took place January 25th, 2022, from 12:00-1:30pm PST. See below for the recording.
About the event
When Iraqi photojournalist Ali Arkady embedded with an elite military unit as they battled ISIS, he thought he was going to document heroics. Instead he witnessed and photographed some of the most brutal instances of torture and abuse in modern Iraqi history.
What followed was an award-winning series in media organizations around the world — as well as death threats that forced him to flee his home country for good. Arkady was also the target of a disinformation campaign aimed at destroying his credibility and his career.
Join the GRC’s Executive Editor Andrea Crossan in a conversation about the ethics, risks and costs of bearing witness to war crimes.
About Ali Arkady: Ali Arkady is an Iraqi photographer, filmmaker, and artist currently living in Europe. Arkady documented Iraqi conflicts for over 18 years, focusing on displacement of civilians, the Yazidi community, and the violence perpetrated by the Islamic State. In 2017, Arkady and his family fled to Europe after he photographed Iraqi forces committing war crimes. The publication of these photos pressured the Iraqi government to acknowledge the army’s crimes, and earned him the Bayeux Prize for War Correspondents in 2017, and the Free Press Unlimited Most Resilient Journalist Award in 2019. Since leaving Iraq, Arkady has trained young photographers at the UNHCR and the VII Academy. He is currently working on an upcoming publication and multimedia website in partnership with the Global Reporting Centre and VII Photo Agency.
About Andrea Crossan: Andrea Crossan is the Executive Editor of the Global Reporting Centre. She has worked as a journalist in the US, UK and Canada and has reported from conflict and post-conflict zones around the world.
This talk is co-sponsored by the Global Reporting Centre and the W. Maurice Young Centre for Applied Ethics. It will take place on January 25th, 2022, from 12:00-1:30pm, on Zoom. Register here. A Zoom link will be sent on January 24th.