Roxana was kind enough to email me and express her appreciation for the efforts of the FreeRoxana team, one of numerous efforts across the country and the world to raise awareness of Roxana’s terrible ordeal. We embrace her and welcome her home.
I want to thank the following individuals for playing a critical role in this FreeRoxana campaign:
Steve Chin was the first to respond to my call for help with the efffort and was my initial co-blogger after I launched the FreeRoxana.net site.
Craig Gima, Sharon Chan, Lisa Chung, George Kiriyama, Ellen Endo and Janice Lee were the key folks from the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) that provided me with support from that organization.
Alexis Grant reached out to me on her own and I asked her to take the lead on the Twitter account @freeroxana and she did a terrific job with that. Alexis also led the hunger strike effort, which generated a lot of attention and media coverage, further highlighting Roxana’s plight and engaging supporters in expressing their solidarity.
Caroline Cornish Kmack also reached out to me on her own through the Facebook page and I asked her to take the lead on the Facebook page. She also did a terrific job.
Medill student Joseph Freeman and Professors Jack C. Doppelt and Loren Ghiglione offered the invaluable assistance of the Medill School of Journalism family, which organized numerous activities in support of Roxana.
Joe Freeman was the lead blogger for much of the life of this site, keeping up with news and developments and conducting his own interviews on this issue.
Finally Sheamus Burns on his own created the FreeRoxana icon and artwork that really made a difference in attracting attention and helping me better brand the blog, Facebook page and Twitter account.
Roxana is back home in Fargo and we move on to fight other battles. Numerous other journalists — such as Laura Ling and Euna Lee — are oppressed or imprisioned in other countries. Support them like you supported Roxana so that we can hope to see Laura, Euna and others back home in their own Fargos.
Follow @LiberateLaura on Twitter and subscribe to Richard Horgan’s site at http://liberatelaura.wordpress.com.
Many thanks,
Keith
One Response
June 5th, 2009 at 10:49 pm
[...] Cross-posted from FreeRoxana.net: [...]
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