Peter Greste: The Correspondent

Professor Peter Greste is an Australian award-winning broadcast journalist, academic, media freedom activist, and author. Before becoming an academic in 2018, he spent 25 years as a foreign correspondent, mostly for the BBC and Al Jazeera. He began his career covering the civil war in Yugoslavia and elections in South Africa as a freelance reporter in the early ’90s. In 1995, he joined the BBC as its Afghanistan correspondent and went on to cover Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa. In 2011, he won a Peabody Award for a BBC documentary on Somalia. Later that year, he moved to Al Jazeera as its East Africa correspondent. In December 2013, while on a short assignment in Egypt, he was arrested on terrorism charges. After a widely criticized trial, he was sentenced to seven years in prison. During his 400-day imprisonment, he wrote letters defending press freedom, sparking a campaign that led to his release the following February. To honour his advocacy, he has won numerous domestic and international awards, including a Walkley for a lifetime contribution to journalism, Australia’s highest accolade for journalists; the British Royal Television Society’s Judges Award; and the Tribeca Disruptive Innovator’s Award, all in 2015. He has also received the International Association of Press Clubs’ Freedom of Speech Award, the Australian Human Rights Commission Medal, and the Australian Press Council’s 2018 Press Freedom Award. Peter has written about his experiences in The First Casualty, published in 2017 and now in production as a feature film. He remains an avid advocate of media freedom and journalist safety.

Profesor Peter Greste adalah jurnalis penyiaran asal Australia peraih berbagai penghargaan, akademisi, aktivis kebebasan media, dan penulis. Sebelum menjadi akademisi pada 2018, ia menghabiskan 25 tahun sebagai koresponden luar negeri, sebagian besar untuk BBC dan Al Jazeera. Kariernya dimulai dengan meliput perang saudara di Yugoslavia dan pemilihan umum di Afrika Selatan sebagai jurnalis lepas pada awal 1990-an. Pada 1995, ia bergabung dengan BBC sebagai koresponden untuk Afghanistan, kemudian meliput Amerika Latin, Timur Tengah, dan Afrika. Pada 2011, ia memenangkan Peabody Award untuk sebuah dokumenter BBC tentang Somalia. Tak lama kemudian, ia pindah ke Al Jazeera sebagai koresponden Afrika Timur. Pada Desember 2013, saat sedang menjalankan tugas singkat di Mesir, ia ditangkap dengan tuduhan terorisme. Setelah melalui persidangan yang menuai banyak kritik, ia dijatuhi hukuman penjara tujuh tahun. Selama 400 hari dipenjara, ia menulis surat yang membela kebebasan pers, memicu kampanye yang berujung pada pembebasannya pada Februari tahun berikutnya. Sebagai penghargaan atas advokasinya, ia telah menerima berbagai penghargaan nasional dan internasional, termasuk Walkley Award untuk kontribusi seumur hidup dalam jurnalisme, penghargaan tertinggi bagi jurnalis di Australia; British Royal Television Society’s Judges Award; dan Tribeca Disruptive Innovator’s Award, semuanya pada 2015. Ia juga menerima International Association of Press Clubs’ Freedom of Speech Award, Medali Australian Human Rights Commission, dan Australian Press Council’s Press Freedom Award pada 2018. Peter menulis tentang pengalamannya dalam buku The First Casualty, yang diterbitkan pada 2017 dan kini sedang diproduksi menjadi film panjang. Ia tetap menjadi pendukung setia kebebasan media dan keselamatan jurnalis.