Libya's besieged journalists stir memories of Sarajevo

guardian.co.uk

The journalists holed up in Tripoli's Rixos hotel will be suffering the same frustration and claustrophobia I felt in Bosnia

Janine di Giovanni

guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 24 August 2011 15.13 BST

Sarajevo, winter 1993. The eminent New York Times reporter John Burns and the equally brave Roy Gutman of Newsday have won the Pulitzer prize – the highest award given to journalists – for their work in Bosnia. There is a good deal of gracious camaraderie, cheering and celebrating, as much as wartime allows. But the two can't go the awards ceremony back in America, because they are stuck in the besieged city of Sarajevo. More to the point, they are chained to the hotel where the journalists live: the Holiday Inn, a grim Soviet-style place smack in the middle of Sniper's Alley....more...
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/24/libya-besieged-journalists