IFJ ELECTS NEW LEADERS FOR 2022 – 2026 TERM

By Stephen Ouma Bwire in Muscat, Oman.

Dominique Pradalié is the newly elected elected President of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ). He has worked throughout her career in French public broadcasting, from ORTF to France Télévisions, and has been Editor-in-Chief of the nightly news on France 2.

At the same time as she was pursuing her career as a journalist, Dominique Pradalié was also involved in trade union activities on a voluntary basis. In particular, she has held various mandates to represent journalists within France Télévisions – staff delegate, member of the works council and union representative in the company.

Within the union, she was elected at regional (Ile de France section) and national levels as General Secretary and spokesperson of the SNJ until 2021, in charge of legal and international issues.

She currently sits on the SNJ National Committee, the union’s parliament, and has been a member of the IFJ Executive Committee since the Angers Congress (2016) after being re-elected at the Tunis Congress (2019).

She is a member of the Higher Commission of the Professional Journalists’ Identity Card (CCIJP) until 2021, and is currently deputy treasurer of the Council of Journalistic Ethics and Mediation (CDJM) and administrator of the Maison des lanceurs d’alerte in Paris, organisations of which the SNJ is a co-founder, and of several journalists’ defence associations. She is also an adviser to the Commission d’arbitrage des journalistes, a specific jurisdiction for the profession in France.

Since 1926, when the IFJ was founded in Paris, Dominique Pradalié is the second woman president of the IFJ, after the Belgian journalist Mia Doornaert (1986-1990).

She succeeds Moroccan journalist Younes Mjahed, who was IFJ President from 2019 to 2022. Her term runs until 2026, when the IFJ will celebrate its Centenary.

Ms Pradalié said: “My election to the IFJ Presidency gives me great pride in the honour done to France. Press freedom is under attack all over the world and journalists are the first victims. But it is the citizens who are the most penalised, because democracies are judged by the quality of their media and information, which must be honest, complete, independent and pluralist”.

Ms Pradalié also pointed out that the IFJ Convention against Impunity for Journalist Killers should be adopted by the UN General Assembly: “Solidarity and collective action must be multiplied everywhere to promote and remember the mission and role of journalists in society”.

Anthony Bellanger, IFJ General Secretary, said: “I have known Dominique for many years – we were activists together in the SNJ – and her commitment to the cause of journalists in France and around the world is well known. She has never counted her hours in defending the most precarious (but also others) and she is one of those seasoned and experienced volunteer activists, in touch with social reality, that the IFJ needs”.

President:      Dominique Pradalié   SNJ – France

Senior Vice President:                 Zuliana Lainez Otero    ANP – Peru

Vice-President:          Nasser Abu Baker            PJS – Palestine

Vice-President:          Sabina Inderjit    Indian Journalists Union

Honorary;

Treasurer

 Jim Boumelha National Union of Journalists (NUJ)

2.    Advisers

Mohamed Al Araimi OJA  Oman

Dhairan Almutairi     KJA  Kuwait

Maria José Braga        FENAJ – Brazil

Larry Goldbetter        NWU – USA

Adriana Hurtado    FECOLPER  Colombia

Mohamed Yassine Jelassi    SNJT – Tunisia

Joachim Kreibich        dju in verdi  Germany

Raffaele Lorusso         FNSI – Italy

Filemón Medina         Sindicato de Periodistas de Panama

Marion Medjo Obam SNJC – Cameroon

Luis Menendez           FAPE – Spain

Jennifer Moreau         UNIFOR – Canada

Omar Faruk Osman   NUSOJ – Somalia

Adam Portelli             MEAA Australia

Maria Luisa Rogério  SJA  Angola

 Ali Youssef   ORLB – Lebanon

3.  Reserve Advisers               

Africa            

1^st    Eduardo Constantino    SNJ – Mozambique

2^nd  Stephen Ouma Bwire    UJU – Uganda

Asia 

Rashid Al Hamer       BJA – Bahrain

Mohammed Al Hammadi      JA – UAE

Europe          

1^st   Serhiy Shturkhetskyy    IMTUU – Ukraine

Latin America           

1^st Jose Altagracia Guzman Beato        SNTP – Dominican Republic

2^nd  Domingo Vargas    FENATRAMCO – Chile

Oceania        

1^st  Karen Percy          MEAA – Australia

2^nd  Leigh Tonkin       MEAA – Australia

General Reserve Advisers   

1^st Indira Priyadarshini Nawagamuwa     FMETU – Sri Lanka

2^nd Wanchi You          ATJ – Taiwan

The IFJ represents more than 600,000 journalists in 146 countriesin the world ■