Garance Le Caisne

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Garance Le Caisne ([ ɡa'ʀɑ̃s lə'kɛn ]; * before 1975 in France ) is a French journalist and author . Through their 2015 published nonfiction Opération César: Au coeur de la machine de mort syrienne about the atrocities of the Assad - regime in Syria they gained international prominence. In Germany she was honored with the Geschwister-Scholl-Prize in 2016 .

Geschwister-Scholl-Prize 2016 for Garance Le Caisne

Life

Garance Le Caisne, who lives in the Sarthe department, writes as a freelance journalist for the French weekly newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche and the news magazine L'Obs . Since the beginning of the 1990s she has been reporting on political issues from the Middle East and the protests, uprisings and revolutions in the Arab world .

In her non-fiction book, Opération César: Au coeur de la machine de mort syrienne , published in France in 2015 , Le Caisne tells the story of a former Syrian military photographer who, as part of his service, was forced to take several photographs of every individual killed and tortured by the Assad regime and archive them. Horrified by his work, he secretly copied these documents onto USB sticks and thus smuggled more than 50,000 of these photos out of the country as evidence at risk of death. After his escape in 2013 he lives under the code name " Caesar " in an unknown place in Northern Europe.

After months of efforts, Le Caisne was the only journalist who managed to get in touch with the whistleblower and gain his trust. In Le Caisne's book he reports on his dangerous mission and discloses detailed information about the atrocities during the Syrian civil war . In addition, for her book, Le Caisne interviewed surviving former inmates of Syrian prisons who confirmed "Caesar's" statements.

The book appeared in a short time in Dutch, German, Italian, Polish and Spanish. For the German version with the title “Codename Caesar: In the Heart of the Syrian Death Machine”, published in 2016 by Verlag CHBeck , Le Caisne was honored with the Geschwister-Scholl-Prize in November 2016 . The award ceremony took place on November 21, 2016 in Munich's Ludwig Maximilians University .

Reactions to the book

The book received a great response in the national and international media and triggered different reactions. The Syrian President Bashar al-Assad questioned the authenticity of the recordings, but the UN commission to investigate human rights violations in Syria confirmed it. The American FBI and the Human Rights Watch organization also confirmed that the photos had not been manipulated.

Garance Le Caisne expressed the hope that the content of the book would lead to consequences under international law for the perpetrators and that Bashar al-Assad would have to answer before the International Criminal Court . You and “Caesar” see the book as “a message to all the diplomats and politicians who are approaching Assad again today”.

Awards

  • 2016: Geschwister-Scholl-Prize

Publications

  • Operation César: Au coeur de la machine de mort syrienne . Paris 2015, ISBN 978-2-286-12205-8 . (French)
  • Code name Caesar: At the heart of the Syrian death machine. (German version by Opération César ), from the French by Stefan Lorenzer, CH Beck, Munich 2016, ISBN 978-3-406-69211-6 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Prize Winner 2016 , Geschwister-Scholl-Preis website, Geschwister-scholl-preis.de, accessed on March 23, 2017.
  2. ↑ a b Book review “Codename Caesar” - Each corpse is given three numbers. In: deutschlandfunk.de. April 11, 2016. Retrieved March 23, 2017 .
  3. ^ Johanna Pfund: Waiting for justice. In: sueddeutsche.de . November 2, 2016, accessed March 30, 2017 .
  4. ↑ Anita Bachmann: Code name César - witness of Assad's atrocities. In: tagesanzeiger.ch. October 2, 2015, accessed March 30, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Le Caisne, Garance
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French journalist and author
DATE OF BIRTH 20th century
PLACE OF BIRTH France