Journalism students highlight plight of jailed journalists with bracelets

http://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2015/mar/27/journalism-students-highlight-plight-of-jailed-journalists-with-bracelets

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Journalism students in a US university are planning to publicise the plight of imprisoned journalists by launching a line of bracelets emblazoned with their names, reports the Associated Press.

The journalism students at the University of Maryland hope to raise enough money to produce 10,000 bracelets in a project called Press Uncuffed.

All the money they raise by selling them will then be donated to the New York-based press freedom group, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

Rosemary Ostmann, a Maryland university alumna and spokeswoman for the project, said that in addition to raising money and helping the 221 journalists imprisoned currently held in jails across the world “it will raise awareness of what it takes to report a story, and how important that truth is for a free and prosperous society”.

The journalists named on the bracelets are Ammar Abdulrasool (held in Bahrain); Mahmoud Abou Zeid (Egypt); Reeyot Alemu (Ethiopia); Khadija Ismayilova (Azerbaijan); Bheki Makhubu (Swaziland); Ta Phong Tan (Vietnam); Jason Rezaian (Iran); Yusuf Ruzimuradov (Uzbekistan); and Ilham Tohti (China).

Source: AP via Yahoo News