London - Mexican freelance cameraman Arturo Perez was presented with a top prize at the annual Rory Peck Awards ceremony in London for his coverage of the drugs war that has gripped Ciudad Juarez.
Others honoured were Najibullah Quraishi, a British-based Afghan, who won the features award for a documentary "Behind Enemy Lines"; British director and cameraman Nick Read, who won the Sony Professional Impact Award for "Slumdog Children of Mumbai"; and U.S. photo-journalist Roger Arnold, who collected the news award for his coverage of the Bangkok "Red Shirt" street protests in May. Najibullah Quraishi also won in 2002,the first person to win two Rory Peck Awards for different films.
The awards, sponsored by Sony Professional, are named after freelance cameraman Rory Peck, who was killed while filming in Moscow. The Rory Peck trust set up by his wife, Juliet, and close friends provides help for freelancers and their families.
Arturo Perez received the Martin Adler Prize at the ceremony at the British Film Institute on 17 November. Now in its fourth year, the Prize honours a freelancer who has played an exceptional role in the telling of a significant news story.
Perez works for Reuters as a freelance. Manuel Carrillo, Senior Producer at Reuters Television in Mexico, who nominated him for the prize, said: "He took the bold decision to base himself (in Ciudad Juarez) in 2008 as the wave of violence, sparked by drug wars, started to engulf the city. Arturo has provided a wealth of stories on the city’s gruesome drugs violence - filming the aftermath of murders of U.S. consulate workers, the mass killing of 15 people slain by gunmen during a high-school party, and the killing of 19 young addicts at a drug rehab centre.
"His work has highlighted how the drugs war is claiming more and more victims not involved with the trade – children, women and university students. In 2009, some 2,750 people were killed in Juarez and it is estimated that by the end of 2010, the body count will reach 3,000.
“Arturo has captured with his camera shocking images which document the massacres, attacks, disappearances and car bombs which have left thousands of victims in a city which has become the battle ground for criminal gangs.
“Despite threats and intimidation from these gangs and even from the security forces, Arturo has remained strong and unfailing in his coverage – mindful of the fact that in Mexico, other journalists have been killed just for fulfilling their duty to keep society informed”.
Tira Shubart, Trustee of the Rory Peck Trust, said, “For the past five years Mexico has been in the top three most dangerous countries in the world for journalists – a little known fact until recently. So we are pleased to honour Arturo Perez who, every day, is committed to gathering news under the most difficult and threatening of circumstances.”
Since 2006, at least 30 journalists and media workers have been killed in Mexico, according to the U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists. Dozens more have been attacked, kidnapped or forced into exile, making it one of the world's most dangerous countries for the media.
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