İrfan Aktan

İrfan Aktan was selected for the 2022 European Press Prize shortlist with Loosening the stake.

İrfan Aktan was born in 1981 in Hakkâri. He graduated from the Department of Journalism at the Ankara University Faculty of Communication in 2003. For his graduation project, with a group of friends, he shot two documentaries on Iraqi and Iranian refugees, titled, “Ömer Eve Gel/Ömer Come Home” and “Arka Bahçenin İnsanları/The People of the Backyard”. He began his journalistic career while still a student, in the year 2000, at www. bianet.org . He then worked at Express magazine, BirGün newspaper, the magazines Yeni Aktüel, Newsweek Türkiye and Nokta, Radikal newspaper, birdirbir.org and zete.com respectively. In the year 2010 he worked as the Ankara bureau chief of IMC TV. From 2016 to 2021, he wrote weekly articles and published interviews at Gazete Duvar. He continues to regularly contribute to Express magazine, www.birartibir.org and www. artigercek.com Aktan’s articles have been included in many books, and he has two books of his own, Nazê and Zehir ve Panzehir: Kürt Sorunu [The Poison and the Antidote: The Kurdish Issue]. His main fields of interest include the Kurdish issue, refugees, disadvantaged groups, racist-discriminatory policies, press freedom and the freedom of expression.

Roberta Nikšić

Roberta Nikšić was selected for the 2022 European Press Prize shortlist for ‘Life with migrants.’

Roberta Nikšić (Mrkonjić Grad, 1982), a theologian, graduated in Franciscan Theology in Sarajevo, and completed Women’s Studies in Zagreb. She has published reviews in Bosna Franciscana, and Motrišta, short stories, reviews, columns and reportages in Svjetlo Riječi, articles on the socio-political engagement of women theologians in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia in Religion & Geselschaft in Ost und West, and in Journal of the European Society of Women in Theological Research.  She also published two books of poetry.

During her collaboration for Svjetlo Riječi, a magazine run by Bosnian Franciscans, she has learned from the best, because the magazine brought together some of the most prominent intellectuals, theologians, journalists, writers, historians. That scenario changed in 2013., after the dismissal of the editor-in-chief which also resulted in a change in editorial policy. Many collaborators refused to write for Svjetlo Riječi, and so did she. With time, that formerly open-minded and critical magazine for religion, society and culture became a one-sided monthly magazine that keeps silent about anomalies in Bosnian societies and religious communities, such as, among other things, the nationalization of religion and consecration of the national, and the use of religion to ensure the rise of the political power of individuals and their political parties.

By launching polisa.ba in 2020., again by a group of Bosnian Franciscans, a website that nurtures openness, care and commitment to marginal voices that cannot be seen or heard in the midst of widespread media noise, on the platform where contributors can freely reflect on the positive aspects of religion and critically reflect on anomalies in Bosnian society, she found her home to write.