Persecuted writer receives prestigious award

A Chadian investigative journalist, Daniel Bekoutou, is among a group of writers from 20 countries to receive grants from Human Rights Watch (HRW) in recognition of their courage in the face of political persecution, HRW announced on Wednesday. Each year, HRW presents Hellman/Hammett grants to writers who have been targets of political persecution. The rights group has done so since 1989 when the estates of US authors Lillian Hellman and Dashiell Hammett asked it to design a programme for writers in financial need as a result of expressing their views. This year’s grants total $175,000. Bekoutou’s problems started when he uncovered financial scandals in health and environmental programmes in Senegal, where he lived in exile, HRW said. In November 1999, he was badly beaten by operatives who accused him of writing overly critical articles on Chad’s president, Idris Deby. He later began covering the case of Hissène Habré, Chad’s exiled ex-president indicted in Senegal on torture charges. Bekoutou wrote many articles exposing political killings, torture and disappearances during Habré’s regime and played a key role in keeping newspapers from prematurely leaking news of the indictment, which would have given Habré time to flee, HRW said. The day after Habré’s indictment, Bekoutou began receiving death threats. Fearing for his life, he fled to Paris.