Image of Sudan revolution on shortlist for 2020 World Press Photo of the Year

A powerful image by Japanese AFP photographer Yasuyoshi Chiba*, of a young Sudanese man reciting a poem as other youthful protestors chant slogans at a Khartoum demonstration, has been shortlisted for the prestigious World Press Photo of the Year award for 2020.

The picture entitled Straight Voice is among a shortlist of six nominees for the award, the winner of which will be announced at an event in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, on 16 April.

It shows a young man, illuminated by mobile phones, reciting a poem at a public demonstration for civilian rule during a blackout in Khartoum on June 19, 2019.

The then ruling military junta that overthrew the 30-year dictatorship of Omar Al Bashir in April 11, following the massacre during the break-up of the sit-in at the General Command of the army in Khartoum on June 3, ordered an internet blackout, asserting that the internet was “a threat to national security”. This resulted in Sudan being effectively digitally cut-off from the outside world for a period of 38 days.

The World Press Photo Contest rewards photographers for the best single exposure pictures contributing to the past year of visual journalism. Whether entered as singles or stories, these pictures are judged in terms of their accurate, fair, and visually compelling insights about our world.

* Yasuyoshi Chiba is Agence France-Presse (AFP) Chief Photographer for East Africa and Indian Ocean, currently based in Nairobi, Kenya. After studying photography at Musashino Art University in Tokyo, he started working as a staff photographer for Asahi Shimbun. He became a freelance photographer and moved to Kenya in 2007, and then joined AFP in Brazil in 2011 (source: WPF)