Books to make you think

This week Inside Geneva podcast host Imogen Foulkes talks to authors who have written about humanitarian topics.

What is it like to track down human rights violators?

“Each day in court, seeing Hissène Habré I would pump my fist: ‘my God, we got him.’ But you never knew, and I have to say when they started reading the verdict it was such joy, but it was also a relief. I mean I felt like after 16 years, this weight had been lifted off me. I could finally recover my life,” says Reed Brody, author of To Catch a Dictator (2022).

What are the dilemmas facing journalists covering humanitarian crises? Why should one particular crisis have more attention?

“The more coverage of Ukraine, or the recent earthquake in Syria and Turkey; the more coverage a crisis gets the more likely audiences are to be aware of it, to care about it, and to donate to it,” says Martin Scott, author of Humanitarian Journalists (2022).

What is the dark reality of fortress Europe’s migration policy?

“Suddenly you’re in direct communication with a person who is telling you they’ve been locked up indefinitely, they’re being tortured, they’re seeing people raped or seeing people die as a result of European Union migration policy. And that’s the moment when you go: ‘wait a second, something has gone desperately wrong,’” says Sally Hayden, author of My Fourth Time, We Drowned (2022).

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