Judges
HIGHLY COMMENDED
Courtesy of Maryam Ashrafi
Maryam Ashrafi
Maryam Ashrafi is a Paris-based Iranian photographer. Born in Tehran in 1982 during Iran and Iraq war, Maryam is impassioned for sociology which led her to focus her interest in social and socio-political issues in countries around the world.
Maryam graduated with a BA in social documentary photography from the University of Wales, Newport. She began to explore these issues, focusing in particular on the situation of Kurds. For several years, she has been working on different subjects: refugees in Paris, mobilization of the Kurdish and Iranian diasporas and the Indignants Movement in Paris. Above all, as a freelance independent photographer, she has covered the aftermath of wars from Kobane in Northern Syria to Sinjar in Iraqi Kurdistan, until 2018. Her work on Kurdish resistance movements has been the subject of several exhibitions and publications, including the Guardian.
Demonstrations in Paris
On May 25th, 2020, George Perry Floyd, an African American man was murdered by a police officer during an arrest. Soon after, people around the world took to the streets to protest and seek justice. People gathered in Paris also gathered on different occasions in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, denouncing police brutality, and entrenched racism.
Many protesters in France draw a parallel between George Floyd's death and that of Adama Traoré, a young black man who died in police custody in Paris in 2016. They have also protested against the policies of the government and to fight for a society without discrimination, for equality and social and environmental justice, for the abandonment of unemployment insurance and pension reform, for wages that allow for a dignified life, for the reduction of working hours and for quality public services capable of meeting the basic needs of people.