Freelance Realities:
How the Red Cross can help you

Journalists, including video-journalists, along with civilians, war wounded and prisoners of war are protected by the Geneva Conventions. These have been signed by virtually every country in the world. Its provisions, however, are followed to the letter by far fewer. Consequently, the Red Cross is not able to help in every conflict zone.

The ICRC is not an advocacy agency and will not campaign for the release of journalists and neither is it mandated to promote press freedom. Indeed, in general, the organisation believes in the merit of quiet persuasion to bring about change rather than loud denunciation. Hence, its history of low key media relations, although this is slowly changing. ICRC has field offices in most conflict zones. It can be a mine of in-depth information during conflicts for journalists prepared to build up a working relationship based on trust and very careful sourcing as it often has unrivalled, but delicate, access in and around frontlines and runs many hospitals for war wounded.

Disappearance

If a journalist disappears while covering a conflict, the Geneva-based humanitarian agency should be informed. The organisation can then try to find out his/her whereabouts. The ICRC would do this by asking the combatants. More than most other humanitarian organisations, ICRC tries to maintain contacts with local commanders on all sides to a conflict. The organisation routinely crosses frontlines so that it can treat or evacuate wounded.

Capture

ICRC is also mandated to visit prisoners of war and other detainees. So, if a journalist is imprisoned, the ICRC can sometimes visit the prison and find out if a journalist has been held. The organisation is also allowed to pass messages backwards and forwards between prisoners and family members. And after a war is over, the ICRC can help repatriate journalists who have been held prisoner.

The role of the Red Cross is strictly humanitarian. It visits prisoners with the aim of monitoring their condition and providing them with material help when necessary. It does not comment on the motives of arrest nor does it demand the release of detainees. Its work is strictly laid out in the Geneva Conventions.

The organisation's founding principles are independence, impartiality and neutrality and it likes to stick to them.

Urs Boegli, Head, Media Services, ICRC, Geneva

To get help contact any ICRC staff member in the field or the press division in Geneva (+41-22-734-6001).

Issue 3
September 1999

• Letter from Paddington
• This is what we're about
• Freelance Realities: Internet Rights are not for free
• Freelance Realities: How the Red Cross can help you
• Albania Diary: by Chantal Abouchar
• The 1999 Rory Peck Awards
• Global Billboard

• Issue 13
• Issue 12
• Issue 11
• Issue 10
• Issue 9
• Issue 8
• Issue 7
• Issue 6
• Issue 5
• Issue 4
• Issue 3
• Issue 2
• Issue 1

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