DUSHANBE, February 28, 2014, Asia-Plus — Penal Reform International (PRI) is launching a competition for the best journalism investigating the death penalty and life (or long-term) imprisonment.
The death penalty remains in many parts of the globe, while around the world people are imprisoned for decades at a time. While trials, sentences and executions often make the headlines, other features of the death penalty and life imprisonment are largely unknown.
The focus could be on such subjects as individual stories, investigations into prison conditions or wider considerations about the laws and regulations about the death penalty.
“We are looking for entries published anywhere in the world between 1 April 2013 and 30 April 2014, in any media format, in Arabic, English or Russian,” Ms. Dinara Dildabekova, Project Coordinator of the PRI’s Office in Central Asia, told Asia-Plus in an interview.
According to her, winners will receive an expenses-paid two-day trip to London in October 2014, including a one-day visit to the offices of
The Guardian
newspaper. There they will be able to see the paper being put together, meet journalists working on relevant issues and receive advice and feedback on their articles. Winning articles will also be published by PRI on its website.
Founded in London in 1989, Penal Reform International (commonly known as PRI) is an international nongovernmental organization working on penal and criminal justice reform worldwide. It has members in five continents and in over 80 countries. PRI currently has regional offices and programs in the Middle East and North Africa, Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia and the South Caucasus. They have also worked with partner organizations in other parts of Africa and, using a variety of approaches, on penal reform issues in Asia, North and Latin America and the Caribbean. PRI shares best practice and expertise across regions, as well as working to develop and promote culturally specific solutions to criminal justice and penal reform. PRI works with penal reform activists, NGOs and governments, as well as intergovernmental organizations such as the United Nations.
