ZEIN AL-RIFAI, A REGULAR CONTRIBUTOR TO AFP IN SYRIA, HAS WON THE PRESTIGIOUS RORY PECK AWARD WHICH RECOGNISES THE BEST WORK BY FREELANCE PHOTO AND VIDEO JOURNALISTS.
From June 2014 to February 2015, Zein Al-Rifai covered the daily lives of people living in the rebel-held zone of Aleppo. Formerly Syria’s economic capital, Aleppo has been divided since April 2012 into districts held by government forces in the west and rebel fighters in the east. Zein Al-Rifai’s coverage focused on the inhabitants’ daily struggle for survival in the face of bombardments by the regime.
Zein Al-Rifai is 28 and married; he was an anti-Assad activist at the start of the revolution before co-founding the Aleppo Media Center. His friends and colleagues taught him how to use a video camera. Since then he has worked as a stringer for several international media including AFP, to which he regularly contributes. In August 2015 he was seriously injured while covering fighting between rebels and government forces north of Aleppo.
Al-Rifai and fellow AFP stringer Yahya Hassouna, nominated for his work on the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip in summer 2014, were among the three finalists for the news category. He succeeds fellow AFP stringer Pacôme Pabandji, who won the prize last year for his coverage of the civil war in Central Africa.
Launched in 1995 by the Rory Peck Trust, the prize recognises the best freelance cameramen and women. The awards ceremony is one of the Trust’s main fund raising events. This 20th edition of the awards was chaired by Sky News journalist Alex Crawford, who has been chosen as the Royal Television Society journalist of the year a total of four times.
