Nuri Kino

Nuri Kino, (born February 25, 1965, in Tur Abdin in southeast Turkey), is a Swedish Assyrian journalist, documentary filmmaker and author. He has won awards for his reporting on human-rights issues, and founded A Demand For Action to assist minorities in Iraq and Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East.

Life and career

Nuri Kino is the eldest of four children of an Assyrian family that originates from the village of Kfar-Shomac, south of the town of Midyat. His parents moved to Germany as guest workers when he was four; in 1974, when he was eight, they visited his grandparents in Sweden and decided to stay because there were more jobs.[1] He was kidnapped twice in childhood.[2] In 1985 he became one of Sweden’s first male medical recorders. He has also run a restaurant; in 1994 he was chosen Stockholm's most popular restaurant owner.[3]

In 1998 he graduated from the Poppius School of Journalism in Stockholm. The following year he was in Istanbul when the Marmara earthquake occurred. He was interviewed by international news agencies and wrote a widely cited report on the collapse of buildings that had been known to be weak, the real start of his career as a journalist.[1] He has since worked as a freelance investigative journalist for Dagens Nyheter, Expressen, Aftonbladet and Metro. In 2002 he started freelancing for the Swedish radio station Sveriges Radio. His reporting has focused on human rights, immigration and refugee issues, and he has worked for the media abroad in countries including Turkey, Denmark, Norway, Finland, the U.S., and the Netherlands (reporting for the BBC and on the Dutch program Dit is de Dag).

After a two-year hiatus from journalism, Kino went to Lebanon to write a report on the Christian minority in Syria, Mellan taggtråden (Between the Barbed Wire), published in 2013; it was widely cited in the media internationally and gave rise to many debates, among them the U.S. Congress Joint Subcommittee Hearing on Religious Minorities in Syria: Caught in the Middle.[4]

He was selected to host the Sommar radio program on P1 on June 18, 2004.[3]

Nuri Kino also does aid work, sometimes with the Youth Initiative of the Syriac Orthodox Church. In 2014 he founded A Demand For Action, an organization to obtain relief for minorities in the Middle East, particularly Christians in Iraq and Syria.[5][6]

Television and film

With Yawsef Beth Turo, Kino made Det ohörda ropet (The Unheard Cry, 2001), about the killing of Assyrians in southeast Turkey during World War I.[2][7]

With Erik Sandberg, Kino made Assyriska - landslag utan land (Assyriska - national football team without a country) for Sveriges Television. In 2006 it won the Golden Palm Award at the Beverly Hills Film Festival.[1]

With Jenny Nordberg he made the documentary The High Price of Ransom for Dan Rather Reports.

Books

In 2007 Kino published By God - Sex dagar i Amman (By God – Six Days in Amman), a report on the consequences of the Iraqi war. In 2010 he wrote Still Targeted: Continued Persecution of Iraq's Minorities, a report for Minority Rights Group International.

In 2011, he published Den svenske Gudfadern (The Swedish Godfather), about Milan Ševo, a convicted felon born in Serbia but brought up in Sweden, who claimed that close friends of King Carl XVI Gustaf had given him the task of destroying evidence that linked them and the king to porn clubs. The book was presented as a work of journalism illuminating the attraction that crime has for young people. Journalist Hanne Kjöller of Dagens Nyheter considered the book lacking in both objectivity and criticism of the sources, calling it a "portrait of an idol".[8] However, the Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet reported that Ševo confirmed the information in the book was correct.[9] Writing in Göteborgs-Posten, Mattias Hagberg thought the controversy detracted from Kino's message.[10] According to the book's publisher, Kino's computer was hacked and threats were made to stop a planned TV film.[11] The book has sold well and is cited by Swedish criminologists.

Kino has also published novels. In 2008 with Jenny Nordberg he published Välgörarna - Den motvillige journalisten (Benefactors - The Reluctant Journalist), a suspense novel whose main character he has said is based on himself;[7] it has been translated into Finnish, German, and Norwegian. In 2010, he and David Kushner published Gränsen är dragen, a novel set against the backdrop of the war in Iraq and the situation of Iraqi Christians; it was published in the US in 2013 as The Line in the Sand.

Awards

2000

2002

2003

2004

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Aslı Sağlam, "Director Nuri Kino: What was done to me created me", Hürriyet, 2008.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Sandra Grossman, "Nuri Kino: ”Jag vägrar sälja min själ'", Journalisten, January 15, 2002 (Swedish).
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 "Nuri Kino 2004", Sommar & Vinter i P1, P1, May 2004 (Swedish).
  4. ↑ Joint Subcommittee Hearing: Religious Minorities in Syria: Caught in the Middle, United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations, Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa, June 25, 2013.
  5. ↑ Paul Benjamin, "Assyrian Boots on the Ground, Not American", Huffington Post, December 8, 2014.
  6. ↑ About A Demand For Action, retrieved February 19, 2015.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Moussa Esa, "Nuri gör en god gärning", Hujådå, October 30, 2008 (Swedish).
  8. ↑ Hanne Kjöller, "Milan Sevos makeover", Dagens Nyheter, May 27, 2011 (Swedish).
  9. ↑ Victor Stenquist, "Maffiabossen om kontakt: 'Förvånad'. Pratar ut om kontakten med kungens vänner", Aftonbladet, May 20, 2011 (Swedish).
  10. ↑ Mattias Hagberg, "Bok: Nuri Kino | Den svenske gudfadern", Göteborgs-Posten, May 26, 2011 (Swedish).
  11. ↑ Annika Bladh, "Kungagranskaren tvingas leva under hot", Aftonbladet]], December 9, 2011 (Swedish).
  12. ↑ Guldspaden 2000, Föreningen Grävande Journalister, archived at the Wayback Machine, March 26, 2011 (Swedish).
  13. ↑ Guldspaden 2002, Föreningen Grävande Journalister, archived at the Wayback Machine, March 26, 2011 (Swedish).
  14. ↑ Guldspaden 2003, Föreningen Grävande Journalister, archived at the Wayback Machine, March 26, 2011 (Swedish).
  15. ↑ Ikaros-priset 2003, press release, Swedish Radio, March 19, 2004 (Swedish)
  16. ↑ Afram Barryakoub, "Nuri Kino wins Swedish Blatte De Luxe Award", Assyria Times, August 4, 2006.
  17. ↑ "Nuri Kino: Zinda Magazine's 'Assyrian of the Year 6755'", Zinda Magazine, April 22, 2006.
  18. ↑ "Nuri Kino Wins Blatte De Luxe Award - Again", Zinda Magazine, August 16, 2007.
  19. ↑ "Ikaros till Kaliber 2008!", Sveriges Radio, May 9, 2008 (Swedish).
  20. ↑ http://www.eppj.eu/view/sv/former_winners.html
  21. ↑ "Ekots granskning av EU-bidrag får journalistpris", Press release, European Parliament, October 14, 2010 (Swedish)

External links

Preceded by
Sargon Dadesho		 Zinda Magazine Assyrian of the Year
2006 (6755) 		Succeeded by
Sarkis Aghajan Mamendo