Emeritus board

Made up of men and women who have distinguished themselves in the field of human rights, in particular freedom of expression, the Emeritus Board will support and strengthen the work of Reporters Without Borders, bringing it new ideas and fresh vision for the future.

The members of Reporters Without Borders’ Emeritus Board are :

Robert Badinter
French lawyer, senator and former justice minister. He has promoted civil liberties (including abolition of the death penalty in France) and defended human rights on several European and international bodies.

Shirin Ebadi
Iranian lawyer and 2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner. She is one of Iran’s leading human rights defenders and has been outspoken in her opposition to violence and censorship.

Wu'er Kaixi
Chinese dissident known for his leading role during the Tiananmen protests of 1989. He achieved prominence while studying at Beijing Normal University as a hunger striker who rebuked Chinese Premier Li Peng on national television.

Baltasar Garzón
Spanish judge. He helped to draw attention to dirty war crimes under Augusto Pinochet in Chile and to shed light on cases of corruption, money-laundering and embezzlement at the international level.

Adam Michnik
Polish journalist, essayist and historian. He was a leading member of the democratic opposition in Poland until 1989. Now editor of the daily newspaperGazeta Wyborcza, he is one of the key figures of the cultural, social and political fight for freedoms.

Michèle Montas
Haitian journalist. She opposed and resisted violence against journalists and censorship in Haiti and was UN secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon’s spokesperson.

Taslima Nasreen
A former Bangladeshi doctor and now author. Her books condemn violations of fundamental rights, including women’s rights. Her writing reflects a fight against censorship of which she has been a victim.

Ghassan Salamé
A Lebanese political scientist, academic and former culture minister. He was special adviser to former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan. A specialist in political and cultural dynamics in the Middle East, he has also been president of the Ministerial Conference of the Francophonie.

Eugenio Scalfari
A political and investigative journalist and former Italian parliamentarian. He helped to found and develop the Italian daily La Repubblica and often wrote for the news magazine L’Espresso, which he edited. His work has helped to combat political censorship and diversity the Italian media.

Roberto Saviano
Italian journalist and writer. After the release of his bestseller Gomorra in 2006, in which he describes criminal activities of the Comorra in Naples, Saviano lives in a secret place to avoid reprisals.

Zlatko Dizdarevic
Bosnian journalist. He was editor in chief of Oslobodenje, independent daily in Sarajevo. Former director of the weekly Svijet, he was also ambassador of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Croatia.

Michaelle Jean
Reknown for the diversity of her political, journalistic, diplomatic and cultural career, Michaelle Jean serves as the Secretary-General of the International Organization of La Francophonie (OIF) and had previously served has special representative for Haiti at UNESCO.

Horacio Verbitsky
Argentine journalist, director of Página/12, presidente of the Center for Legal and Social Studies. He campaigns for freedom of information and his investigations helped to dig up massive political corruption scandals.

Alpha Oumar Konaré
Former president of Mali, (from 1992 to 2002) and former president of the Commission of the African Union (from 2003 to 2008), Alpha Oumar Konaré is a political figure resolutely committed to defence of democracy and fully involved in promotion of press freedom in Mali. In the 1980’s, he founded and ran the cultural magazine Jamana, and the daily Les Echos, before he creates in 1991, Radio Bamakan, the first independent radio in Mali.

Wole Soyinka
Nigerian writer, Nobel Prize laureate in literature and the first African to be awarded this distinction in 1986, Wole Soyinka is involved in Nigeria’s politics to fight corruption and promote Human Rights. He is president of the African Community of Culture. In Lagos, a center for investigative journalism bears his name in recognition of his fight for journalism and freedom of speech.