Marie Colvin wins Anna Politkovskaya Award 2012 posthumously

American journalist Marie Colvin was awarded the 2012 RAW in WAR Anna Politkovskaya Award for women human rights defenders from war and conflict.

Colvin started her career with United Press International, before joining the British newspaper The Sunday Times in 1985 where she remained until her death. Originally the Sunday Time’s Middle East correspondent, and later Foreign Correspondent, Marie Colvin covered conflicts in Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe, Chechnya, Kosovo, Sri Lanka and East Timor. It was during her time in East Timor that she was credited with saving the lives of 1,500 women and children after she refused to leave them in a compound besieged by Indonesian-backed forces.

She lost the use of her left eye after getting caught in a grenade blast, while reporting on the Sri Lankan civil war in 2001. In early 2011, she covered the Arab Spring’s uprisings across Tunisia, Egypt and Libya and was the first journalist offered an interview access to Muammar Gaddafi after conflict broke out in Libya.

Marie Colvin lost her life on February 22, 2012 while reporting from the besieged city of Homs, in Western Syria. She had defied the ban on foreign journalists imposed by the Syrian government and entered the country on the back of a motorcycle – ensuring that the world would hear about the atrocities against civilians that continue there to this day.

Reach All Women in WAR (RAW in WAR) has been conferring this annual award in memory of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya who died in 2006. For more information on the award and on Marie Colvin, visit http://www.rawinwar.org/ and http://www.rawinwar.org/component/option,com_frontpage/Itemid,188/