{"id":2048,"date":"2023-12-18T14:48:43","date_gmt":"2023-12-18T13:48:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/linking-our-duty-to-inform-with-the-need-to-bring-justice"},"modified":"2023-12-18T14:48:43","modified_gmt":"2023-12-18T13:48:43","slug":"linking-our-duty-to-inform-with-the-need-to-bring-justice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/linking-our-duty-to-inform-with-the-need-to-bring-justice","title":{"rendered":"Linking our duty to inform with the need to bring justice"},"content":{"rendered":"

Caroline Vuillemin, Executive\u00a0Director of Fondation Hirondelle,\u00a0talks about the Fondation’s journalistic work to ensure that societies\u00a0affected by crimes can understand\u00a0the work of international and transitional justice.<\/strong><\/p>\n

What media work has Fondation Hirondelle\u00a0<\/b>done on international justice since it was set\u00a0<\/b>up in 1995?<\/b><\/p>\n

Caroline Vuillemin: <\/b>The history of Fondation\u00a0Hirondelle is closely linked to the development\u00a0of international justice, which has been ruling\u00a0on serious human rights violations since the\u00a0mid-1990s. Created in the aftermath of the\u00a0genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda, the Fondation\u00a0first set up a radio station in Bukavu (DR Congo)\u00a0for the victims and displaced persons of the\u00a0genocide. Then, in 1996, it launched the\u00a0Hirondelle News agency in the building of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Arusha (Tanzania) to cover the ICTR for\u00a0the local media. Hirondelle News published\u00a0dispatches in Swahili, Kinyarwanda, English and\u00a0French, the four languages used by Rwandan\u00a0victims and displaced persons. It has also\u00a0trained dozens of African journalists in the\u00a0specifics of international justice.<\/p>\n

Fondation Hirondelle’s statutes provide for it to\u00a0intervene in countries experiencing serious\u00a0crises, and its media outlets have publicised the\u00a0international court processes in their countries:\u00a0Radio Blue Sky in Kosovo (1999-2000), Radio\u00a0Ndeke Luka in the Central African Republic\u00a0(CAR), Radio Okapi and then Studio Hirondelle\u00a0in the DRC. To make accessible international\u00a0justice, which is both highly technical and\u00a0geographically remote (The Hague in the\u00a0Netherlands), we have made it a point of\u00a0honour to provide information in the language\u00a0of our listeners and to give a voice to the\u00a0people who are the most affected. We also\u00a0developed a partnership with the ICC when it\u00a0was investigating crimes committed in DR\u00a0Congo and the\u00a0Central African\u00a0Republic, so that it\u00a0could speak on our\u00a0radio stations,\u00a0explain its work to as\u00a0many people as\u00a0possible and identify\u00a0local journalists to\u00a0work with.<\/p>\n

Why has Fondation Hirondelle taken an\u00a0interest in these issues?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Created in the aftermath of genocide,\u00a0Fondation Hirondelle has put human dignity at\u00a0the heart of its motto (\u201cMedia for peace and\u00a0human dignity\u201d) and its actions. After such\u00a0crimes, there are few ways of restoring dignity\u00a0to the victims and all those affected. Justice can\u00a0help by naming the violence, acknowledging\u00a0the crimes, convicting those most responsible\u00a0and making reparations where appropriate.\u00a0Journalism helps to publicise this work. It is the\u00a0intermediary between an often highly complex\u00a0judicial process and the public.<\/p>\n

International justice has developed a lot in\u00a0the last 30 years. What are Fondation\u00a0Hirondelle’s current priorities in this area?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fondation Hirondelle’s priority is to respond to\u00a0the needs of the people. When the ICTR closed\u00a0at the end of 2015, we asked ourselves what\u00a0should be done with our accumulated media\u00a0experience in international justice and human\u00a0rights. So we created a new media outlet,\u00a0Justice Info, which focuses not only on\u00a0international criminal justice but also on the\u00a0whole range of so-called “transitional justice”\u00a0processes that are more centred on the notions\u00a0of truth, remembrance, reparation and non-repetition. Unlike international tribunals, these\u00a0processes enable people to engage in dialogue\u00a0and build a shared future. Through media\u00a0coverage, we make sure that people are\u00a0involved in these processes. We provide the\u00a0link.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

This interview is taken from our 12th publication “Mediation” entitled “Making sense of international and transitional justice”, available at this link<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Caroline Vuillemin, Executive\u00a0Director of Fondation Hirondelle,\u00a0talks about the Fondation’s journalistic work to ensure that societies\u00a0affected by crimes can understand\u00a0the work of international and transitional justice. What media work has Fondation Hirondelle\u00a0done on international justice since it was set\u00a0up in 1995? Caroline Vuillemin: The history of Fondation\u00a0Hirondelle is closely linked to the development\u00a0of international justice, which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":2730,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[196],"tags":[231,239,240,303,308],"class_list":["post-2048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-our-news","tag-expertise-peacebuilding","tag-how-we-work-information-dialogue","tag-current-project-justice-info","tag-expertise-justice-and-reconciliation","tag-expertise-humanitarian-crises"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-23 05:29:53","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2048\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}