@Harriet

Fair enough. I can't really argue with someone who thinks its right to ask a mother to dig up her daughter for a picture.

Photojournalism done in this way hurts those of us trying to remain "clean".
It appears that the "paparazzi" style of "anything for the shot" is sadly a new reality. We can only hope this trend disappears quickly under the cloud of shame.
The Pulitzer Centre will, hopefully, not allow their name and good work to be dragged through this type of thing again.

@ Benjamin Chesterton and André Liohn - Would you have bothered so much about the exhumation of the corpse unless so much of debate was going around or was related to a particular photographer. It's important that the matter is getting noticed internationally and that makes the chances high of getting justice to the poor family who can’t afford a lawyer. Instead of getting into professional rivalry and debating on the ethics and morals (which were intact) focus should be on bringing in more such evidences and facts in front of international media. If exhumation would help the family of deceased in getting justice and building pressure on stopping of such gruesome acts, I don’t think Marco did anything wrong.

If a journalist were found to have taken these actions in Europe or the US, they and their editor would be explaining their actions to the police. Committing crimes in the name of 'truth' is never excusable.

Open Letter to The Pulitzer Center and Mr. Vernaschi:

http://vigilantejournalist.com/blog/archives/1639

Have you blocked the comments?

The silence is deafening.

Dear Jon Sawyer - do I understand you right? First you think it is okay to publish pictures made by a photographer who digs up a body of a 10 (or 12?) year old girl illegally.

Then you retract, because some people on blogs complain.

And then you support Marco Vernaschi and say he was in his full right to get "visual evidence" - because the police inspector Moses Binoga did not take pictures of the crime scene (the mother says, though, that the little girl was taken to hospital for examination to be used in the court).

This statement of yours comes in defense of Marco Vernaschi digging up not one but four children to prove his story. Pictures that are – thanks God – no longer on the web.

I am really confused.

The reason: You say you have talked to police inspector Moses Binoga and say: "He also said that he had seen no photos of the girl’s body himself and could not speak as to its condition – a statement that gives considerable weight to Vernaschi’s belief that it was important to gather visual evidence of what had happened".

Moses Binoga has never said he were at the scene. Vernaschi has confirmed this. I will quote from Marco Vernaschi´s own account on this story about Babirye (or Jessica?) on your website:

“The next day, my phone rings. It’s Moses Binoga, Chief of the Police Department’s Anti-Human Sacrifice and Organ Trafficking section. He’s investigating Babirye’s case. Moses is a pragmatic, straightforward person; we have been working on other cases for the past month, sharing and exchanging information and we still have one month ahead. When I first visited him, at his office, he was uncomfortable of having journalists around, especially from western countries. He’s a proud Ugandan and he doesn’t want the world to think his country is the place where people murder children. To some extent, I understand his concern, but I’m glad to see he’s fair. In our conversations he has never tried to deny that child sacrifice is happening in Uganda. On the phone, Moses tells me about Babirye and he invites me to join him in the field to follow the investigation. To his surprise, I answer that I already know about this case. We meet for dinner later this same night, on his return from Katugwe. We discuss the case and then he says: “I know you have been there last night, to photograph the corpse.” In our collaboration over the past month I had never forgotten that Binoga represents a government institution -- and that some people in that government wouldn’t be happy with the kind of story I was covering. I have always had some concern he could have sent someone to arrest me or to seize my equipment, and for this reason I always made sure to leave a back-up of my work in safe hands. That night, I understood we were really partnering. If he wanted to make my life difficult, this would have been the perfect chance. Instead, he simply told me I should have informed him, and that what I did wasn’t legal”.

Am i right?

Thanks for plugging my blog, guys. 3 more bodies unearthed? Amazing. This lends new meaning to the concept of sensational journalism.

Thanks Pulitzer Centre for publishing this. Can you clarify something please? Does this statement,

'They also led us to the childrens graves and agreed to show us the coffins of the three children',

translate into:

'I also persuaded another family to dig up the coffins of three more children'?

If so that's a pretty extraordinary defense. Why wasn't that mentioned when you put out the first statement?

On the 19th of April I wrote to Marco whilst writing my article asking,

'Was this only time a body was exhumed or was there another time?'

He responded to many other questions but not to that one. Now six days later he seems to be admitting this is true (although the language here is so vague I can't be sure) after another journalist asked a similar question but in public yesterday.

The Pulitzer center attacks blogs but when these questions were first raised with them in private they did not respond, instead they forwarded the allegations (which turned out to be true) to Vernaschi. Only after the allegations were raised publicly does it seem that someone at the Pulitzer Center asked if they should really be publishing these pictures. Why didn't they put the project on hold and ask for someone independent to conduct a review?

Jon Sawyer's defense of Vernaschi's actions in persuading the family to allow the body to be dug up contradicts the evidence:

'He also said that he had seen no photos of the girl’s body himself and could not speak as to its condition – a statement that gives considerable weight to Vernaschi’s belief that it was important to gather visual evidence of what had happened.'

But in the video the girls mother clearly says that the body was taken to a hospital and examined by doctors. Clearly this is the evidence that would be used in such a case.

Vernashchi has written,

'Much of the criticism has focused on the picture of Margaret Babirye Nankya,'

However the article you link to has twice as many words on the three year old boy who was undressed so you could take a full frontal nude photograph of him for the purpose of exposing his missing penis and the catheter in its place.

That doesn't exactly fit with Vernashchi's self perception of being a photographer not 'looking for sensationalist photographs' right?

Vernashchi states that, 'A few blogs published charges that I offered money to the family as a means to get the body exhumed,' and link to the website adevelopingstory.

However this is not true. In that article I wrote:

'By his own account a grieving mother was persuaded by Vernaschi to exhume her child’s body so that he could take photographs of her mutilated daughter, after which payment was made to the family and the picture published by the Pulitzer Center.'

This is completely in line with your own version of events in which the body was exhumed and then money handed over.

You also write

'I try to imagine the fear and pain Babirye has experienced while a monster ironically called a “healer” was killing her.'

As for the legal threats could anyone defame Vernaschi any more that he has already done when he wrote the account of persuading the mother within hours of finding her mutilated body ? I doubt it.

Here are the words of another one of those 'bloggers'. This time a Ugandan Journalist, Rosebell:

'Respecting the dead is very much appreciated in the western media and the western world which i believe was the target audience of Marco’s story.

For all the years that American and British soldiers have died in what many now accept was an illegitimate war in Iraq, I have never seen pictures of blown up bodies or pieces of those soldiers in the western media as an
attempt to show the world how gruesome the war has been.

I have seen enough condemnations of videos of beheadings of westerners that media houses in the Middle East have sometimes played. So am wondering why a center like Pulitzer would fall for such cheap sensational journalism?'

Rosebell believe you me, you're not the only one!

http://bit.ly/b5eIQC

Marco says that he communicated with the Police chef in Luwero, but it seams that Mr. Binoga, the chief of police responsible for human sacrifices never got any information about it.

Why did Marco need to wait me to once again expose that he had 3 other bodies exhumed as well?

I like to remind that I have being saying that i don´t agree with Marco´s "methods". I used the term methods because I knew he was using the illegal exhumation as a current way to find “visual evidences” as he likes to call it.

In his previous article “Babirye, The Girl from Katugwe”, Marco describes how his decision to exhume Barbirye was so terrifying for him. Marco is once again contradicting him self. Why did he tried to hide this 3 cases? Why could he just not tell everyone about those 3 other cases when he had the opportunity to do so?

He says in the same article. “Of the many things I have done in my life, this was among the hardest. Being there, out of the blue, in the darkness of this creepy night asking a broken-hearted mother to show me the mutilated corpse of her daughter, is one thing that someway changed my perspective on life. But that is another story.” In other words he is saying that Barbirye´s exhumation was the only one. Or if not. Why was the exhumation of Barbirye so much more emotional than the previous exhumation of 3 very young boys? Please Marco, help us to understand it.

He explained him self in this way, because he believed that no one knew about the case of the 3 boys. He deleted the picture that could incriminate him, hoping that people would not see or remember it. He says "Earlier this month I deleted from my website another photograph, one showing a coffin." Well he is for once saying the trues here. The picture was sure deleted early this month... 2 days ago.

Here you can see the day the police found the bodies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKsT7D-7rO8

Please, note that the video was posted on 07.Jan.2010

Marco came to do this exhumation long after the bodies were buried. I just cannot understand how a photographer with the experience like that Marco have could commit the same "error" more than once.

I just have to think that staging pictures is for him a common thing.

@ Benjamin Chesterton.

I am sure that many people travel to Uganda and do not see these things happening infront of their eyes. I can hardly imagine that Child Sacrifice occurs on the streets infront of the general public.

Even the shrines of the healers in and around Kampala are well disguised- you would not know they were shrines at all, unless you knew they were there.

So your point about a person who had lived in Uganda for two years, not seeing things like this does not surprise me. Equally, had he been living there before 6 months ago, he would not have understood what was being reported in the papers, as until 6 months ago, child sacrifice was only reported in the Lugandan speaking papers and not english ones.

I think you are mistaken to rely on other peoples words and assurances to base your argument. You should base your argument on pure fact and not assumption and hearsay. Are you going on to say now that Vernaschi has exaggerated the story? Firstly it was about the ethics of exhumation, and now?

Having lived in Uganda with my husband for a considerable amount of time and having watched the emergence of this problem go from a little reported one, to one that is reported on almost a daily basis. and I have to beg to differ with your views.

What Vernaschi means about it not being part of the culture, is that it is not part of traditional custom- and actually if you knew anything of the campaigns against this taking place in Uganda- or actually spent considerable time in uganda yourself researching what you are talking about, you would know this, rather than wading into a debate, knowing little to nothing about it.

It also seems from your point above, that you are stating that had Vernaschi respected the victim and the family he was photographing, it would show in the picture. But I ask you- How is the picture in anyway disrespectful in itself? To be honest, I think in general one can see far less respectfully taken photos on a daily basis. I think the pulitzer were wrong to take down some of the photos they took down. If they saw no wrong with them in the first place, they should stand behind their decision and keep them up there- but again let me question you- If you were barraged with criticism, in the way that the pulitzer and Vernaschi has been recently, I think you would consider folding to such pressure too.

I think you have let your personal dislike of Vernaschi cloud your judgement. You are far too involved in this debate to see what you are saying objectively. Research the context around the issue properly- do not rely on the assumptions of others- because they are not stating facts to you, they are stating beliefs. Just like I am to you now.... The line between Truth and belief is a small one- and many people make this mistake.

I think that we should leave this case as it is now. Marco and the Pulitzer administration have admitted their acts and decided to keep the project as it is.

I´m sure that photojournalists around the world know about this case and they are now digesting all this information. We all need to do it.

Today I got an email from a dear friend in NY, a dinosaur in photojournalism talking about cases like Horst Faas, Michel Laurant and J. Ross Baughman.

I don´t agree very much with he said but I understood that wee have to respect time and at the same time fight against moralisms.

I hope that this debate can be taken further than the internet. to a place where we can meet face to face to discover more about each other and to use it as a possibility to develop photojournalism.

Marco; you have being brave but unlucky with your way to accept your acts. You never needed the exhumations to prove you were the right person to expose Human Sacrifice to the world. I´m sorry you did it. I said it before to you and I like to say it again. I wish you wisdom.

Now I have to concentrate my self in the work I´m doing today.

Cheers everyone.

Look also at Marco's pix of the "execution" from the story that won the WPP award this year and tell me what do you think.... I believe they are staged!!

As one who never takes on anonymity, but has in this case because I want my name to have no part in this story, I'm flabbergasted as well by "People understand, lemmings follow." Obviously those of us who are not so enterprising (or inhumane) to pay for the exhumation of a corpse must be lemmings in this most sick and distorted perspective.

Such comments have now not only cast doubt over this work but numerous other images in which the photographer has been accused of staging them. Most astounding yet is the Pulitzer Center's willingness to allow Vernaschi's shortcuts, stagings, and extremely dubious practices to be their unraveling. Numerous former grantees have come forward to say, thank you Pulitzer Center for your support, but we too see a huge problem here with this story, the repeated clarifications, the entrenching of bootheels in the sand, and the reactionary attitudes, including people who I very much respect within the industry and don't know personally, including Asim Rafiqui and Glenna Gordon. These are not fame seekers, voyeurs, or enemies - they are hardworking and sincere in their efforts and care deeply about a profession they are devoting their lives to.

I know no one involved in this entire incident personally, am willing to forego the so-called "fame" of having my name anywhere near this story, and still think it is utterly and incredibly wrong what has been done by Vernaschi and the Pulitzer Center not just in his own practices and in their own grant-making activities in continuing to fund sensational and fraudulent work, but to the profession as a whole. Tragic, and not just for Vernaschi and the Pulitzer Center - who are living perhaps some of their darkest days - but for the selfishness that it takes to drag a profession through the mud while you stand up for your own highly dubious activities.

@Helen How can something be 'embedded' in a culture and not 'actually part of the culture in its own right'?

Surely culture is constantly shifting?

You also say,

'I equally disagree that this is a piece of sensationalist journalism. '

Fair enough, but how does that square with the fact that the Pulitzer Center have been forced to acknowledge that at least in three instances Vernaschi actions were so wrong that they felt the pictures had to be taken down?

And what makes you think you need to dig a body up to tell this story?

Are you really telling a Ugandan journalist that these photos 'fairly represents the situation in Uganda'? Unless you've lived there how could you possibly make that statement?

Here's another photographer who lived in Uganda for two years and has been funded by the Pulitzer Center:

'Couldn’t put my finger on it exactly, but the dark and eerie photos didn’t look anything like the country I’d lived in for two years.'

Glenna Gordon then goes on to make the point which should be obvious but somehow isn't,

'Did he have the best of intentions? Perhaps. But did he have his subjects’ best interests as his primary priority? No.

He says he exhumed the body so that he could expose a wide spread problem. But had he instead respected the needs of the people with whom he was interacting, that respect would show in the photograph and ultimately it would do far more to promote discussion on the issue of child sacrifice than his sensationalist photographs manage to do.

All his photographs manage to do is promote discussions about him.'

http://bit.ly/aCVuPE

Damn Pulitzer Center add that to the growing list of jealous vindictive 'lemmings' you'll have to sue.

@ Ugandan Journalist.

If you see, Vernaschi has been quite clear that child sacrifice is a criminal aspect to society that has become embedded within the culture although not actually part of the culture in its own right. Which you can see in the Untold stories and on Vernaschi's captions on his own site.
And if you talk about the ethics of photographing a dead body- would it be any better to wait until another child is killed to take a photo of the corpse before it is buried.

It would still be of the same method, ie where you go to the family and ask for permission, surely? Unless you are there at the actual time of the murder, which would imply your complicity in such atrocities.

Having travelled extensively through Africa myself, money often exchanges hands- this is part of the culture, part of the corruption, and part of the way in which things work. Do not get me wrong, I think it is wrong to persuade someone to dig up their child for a bribe. But it seems clear to me that this is not what happened in the case of Babiyre. There was no promise of money before the exhumation, and therefore, this was not used by vernaschi as a means of pressuring the family into exhuming the body of their child. I am sure as well, that if they had said no, this would have been accepted by the photographer.
Or are we making him out to be a Machiavellian journalist bent on getting his way by whatever means possible? for I am sure if they had said no- he would not have got the interview we have seen on previous posts.
I equally disagree that this is a piece of sensationalist journalism. I think it is sombre in its tones, and fairly represents the situation in Uganda, whilst respecting the people and victims the photos bring to our attention.

Vernaschi, the criticisms doesn't only stop at your convincing a family to exhume a body of a child, something a journalist would never do in europe or america. you could only do this in Africa. This manipulation of a grieving family. I know what it means to promise a poor family that what you're doing will be of help, its no wonder they expected money from you.
there's no evidence that those pictures explicitly provid in relation to child sacrifice. And if indeed it is true that child sacrife is a cultural thing as you suggested in your story, you needed not go to exhume that body, another body would have been found in few more days for you to take pictures before another funeral.
I don't know you to have personal vendetta neither do I seek to use desperate means to push for self-promotion. I am a Ugandan journalist who has seen the difference Africans victims are covered by foreign media. They are manipulated and the need to publish their story seems to overide any emotions. it's like you're doing them a favour.

Great story, great work, all other critics seems to just well try to catch a little fame,... for their bloggs or career. A journalist who follows the traces of this story,... and then discovers,...

What damage? Magazine stopped publishing stories like this long time ago, because companies who are doing advertisement dont like the bloody reality.

It would be no problem in my eyes to ask the photographer or the center in a closed, private form or? Yes i am of the opinion that some people would like to catch their 15 seconds; You are not discussing the subject anymore, which helps some people who are actually did a crime and will do again for sure. I am really sure that some people are really happy.

People, Children are dying around the planet no one takes notice. Thats the point; Some of your comments show that you have no idea how journalism excuse me public relations works today. There are millions of pictures of forgotten stories. What about the staged iraq soldier pictures - i havn´t heard any blogger at that time,...

I think it is good that organisations like the publitzercenter exist; i think that marco was searching the truth also for himself, because a photographer who is able to catch emotions,... gives also a part from himself away

Oddly, with each successive announcement the overall picture becomes, if anything, more confused and contradictory.

It's also puzzling that having earlier acknowledged "we now believe...that we were wrong in the way we handled the cases of Mukisa and Babirye", that those who helped you come to this important realization are now being smeared as being motivated primarily by "personal vendetta and a desperate push for self-promotion".

The final dismissive assertion that "Lemmings follow. People with perspective understand" is astounding. It now appears that the Pulitzer Center's official position is that anybody who differs in opinion to them is an inconsequential "lemming". Frankly, the lemming camp is showing a great deal more sophistication of thought and action than either Vernaschi or Sawyer. You're bringing yourselves into very real disrepute by taking such an abrasively self-regarding stance.

This story has done such incredible damage to the Pulitzer Center, photojournalism generally and those of us who practice it honestly and in good faith, that a list of questions, advice and possible explanations come almost immediately to mind:

1) It is incredulous to believe that a photographer arrives one dark night at the decision to stage a photo AND have a body exhumed. Surely there were many such dark nights before it to prepare and ready the photographer, in this case Marco Vernaschi, to take such steps.

2) Vagueness, ambiguity, and mixed stories are becoming of those who cannot get theirs straight. The Pulitzer Center appears to have no sense of public relations (nor the photographer) in that if a story needs clarification, further clarification and then yet still more clarification, it's time to go back and make sure that there are still facts to work with. In other words, repeated statements, appraisals, denials, additional details only obfuscate the truth and credibility.

3) Lastly, the Pulitzer Center is going to continue to fund such work even though obviously incredible doubt has been cast over the phototojournalist's working methods, integrity, sense of humanity, and truth-telling abilities? Really?

Jon, if you care about this organization and the work its mission statement professes to being committed to, I think it is time that not just Marco Vernaschi step aside but you as well. Good luck surviving this with your organization, board of directors and fundraising intact. And if all these things survive the fallout from this inhumane farce, good luck finding photojournalists and others with any integrity, honesty, and decency who may wish to attach their names to the your organization's mission, given where its credibility stands at present. Overall, there are clearly too many headcases festering in this profession and they may have now found a nest to roost in.