Beginning at dusk on May 11, the words of the First Amendment that were chiseled into the 74-foot-high wall on the front of the Newseum in Washington, D.C., are being melded with a projection of the names of fallen journalists.
Two days later, on May 13, the Newseum is rededicating its Journalists Memorial, which carries the names of those con!rmed to have died in 2012 while doing their jobs, which in this case was to risk, and lose, their lives to inform the public.
There are 84 new names, plus six that were confirmed and added from years past.
Those names can be multiplied by the thousands more mothers and fathers and siblings and coworkers and readers and listeners and viewers who share in that loss. There are now 2,246 reporters, photographers, broadcasters and news executives with their names on the museum’s memorial wall, dating back to 1837.
“Journalists face danger every day,” the Newseum says of the memorial on its website. “Some are targeted deliberately, while others simply are in the wrong place at the wrong time. They often take calculated risks, sometimes paying with their lives.”
The 84 new names from 2012 represent 25 countries, with the most deaths recorded in Syria, followed by Somalia. And they are:
(Died in Bahrain) Ahmed Ismael Hassan Al-Samadi; (Bangladesh) Jamal Uddin; (Belgium) Michael Cornettel; (Brazil) Ezequiel Barbarosa, Eduardo Carvalho, Valério Luiz de Oliveira, Mário Randolfo Marques Lopes, Enildo Paulo Pereira, Paulo Roberto Cardoso Rodriguez, Decio Sa; (Cambodia) Hang Serei Odom; (Columbia) Guillermo Quiroz Delgado; (Ecuador) Byron Baldeón; (Egypt) Al-Hosseiny Abou Deif; (India) Rajesh Mishra, Tarun Sehrawat, Thang Jam Dwijamani Singh; (Indonesia) Femi Adingsih, Dody Aviantara, Leiron Kogoya, Aditya Sukardi, Ismiyati Sunarto, Didik Nur Yusuf; (Iran) Sattar Beheshti; (Iraq) Kamiran Salaheddin; (Israel) Mahmoud Al-Kumi, Hussam Salama; (Lebanon) Ali Shaaban; (Mexico) Adrian Silva Moreno; (Nepal) Yadav Poudel; (Nigeria) Enenche Akogwu.
(Pakistan) Rehmatullah Abid, Mukkarram Khan Atif, Abdul Haq Baloch, Razzaq Gul, Abdul Qadir Hajizai, Saqib Khan, Mushtaq Khand; (The Philippines) Christopher Guarin; (Russia) Kazbek Gekkiyev; (Somalia) Ali Ahmed Abdi, Hassan Osman Abdi, Farhan Jeemis Abdoulle, Hassan Yusuf Absuge, Mahad Salad Adan, Abdirahman Yasin Ali, Ahmed Addow Anshur, Ahmed Farah Ilyas, Abukar Hassan Mohamoud, Liban Ali Nur, Abdisatar Daher Sabriye, Mohamed Mohamud Turyare; (South Sudan) Isaiah Diing Abraham Chan Awuol; (Syria) Ali Abbas, Shukri Abu Al-Burghul, Sami Abu Amin, Hatem Abu Yehia, Ahmen Adnan Al- Ashlaq, Mohammad Al-Ashram, Ahmed Al-Assam, Taher Al-Awam, Mona Al- Bakkour, Mohamed Al-Khal, Lawrence Fahmy Al-Naimi, Mosaab Al-Odaallah, Abdel Karim Al-Oqda, Rami Al-Sayed, Bassel Al-Shahade, Anas Al-Tarsha, Naji Asaad, Marie Colvin, Yusuf Ahmed Deeb, Gilles Jacquier, Hozan Abdel Halim Mahmoud, Maya Naser, Remi Ochlik, Mohamed Quratem, Anthony Shadid, Mazhar Tayyara, Mika Yamamoto, Basel Tawfiq Youssef, Ammar Mohamed Suhail Zado; (Tanzania) Duadi Mwangosi; (Thailand) Wisut Tangwitthayaporn.
The six names from previous years are Sandro Sandri, who died in China in 1937; Alain Saint-Paul, who died in Vietnam in 1969; Philip Geddes, who died in the U.K. in 1983; Barton Edward Smith, WTVD Raleigh (N.C.), who died in the U.S. in 1991; Jarlath Dolan, South Africa, 1993; and Austin Finn, who died in Ireland in 2001. With each name comes a life, and a story worth remembering.
MOST READ
