Translators and Interpreters in Conflict Zones

by Translator's Digest

But now I’m facing a new reality. One I cannot detach myself from. One where the victims are not far away from me in time or space. The victims are part of my community and reality: they are translators and interpreters who are used by governments in conflict zones and then left behind to be arrested, tortured, and killed for merely doing their jobs. They are recruited for extremely dangerous assignments where they are then hunted down and killed by insurgent groups or military regimes while the governments that employed them do nothing to protect them and refuse to offer them asylum after the assignments are completed. Some examples include the following:

Italy-Afghanistan: Italian journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo and his interpreter Ajmal Naqshbandi were both abducted. The Italian government ensured Daniele’s safe return, but left the interpreter behind to be beheaded.

And the list goes on. We need to take action to help fellow interpreters and translators. To learn more about this, please visit Red-Thttp://red-t.org/index.html, a non-profit organization dedicated to the protection of translators and interpreters (T&Is) in conflict zones and other adversarial settings. Please consider supporting their open letter project, follow them on Facebook and Twitter, blog about these issues, talk about what’s going on, spread the word. We need to raise awareness and get this issue on the international agenda!

http://translatorsdigest.net/2015/09/22/translators-and-interpreters-in-conflict-zones-need-our-help/