PERPIGNAN, France (AlertNet) – When the uprising in Syria spiralled into bloody conflict last year, French photojournalist Mani felt the urge to document what was happening, even though wars weren’t his usual subject.

Mani became a professional freelance photographer three years ago, having ditched a career as a primary school teacher. He spent time covering Sufism and transgender communities in South Asia, but always had a soft spot for Syria where he studied Arabic during his university years.

Through friends and contacts in Syria, he was able to get into the violence-torn city of Homs last October.

There he took pictures of civilians and fighters caught up in the shelling and sniper fire as the Syrian government cracked down on opposition groups. With rebels and activists being arrested in public hospitals, many were forced to seek treatment in makeshift clinics lacking equipment and trained medical staff.

Those images won Mani – who doesn’t use his real name to avoid identification – a prize from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The Humanitarian Visa d’Or award is for photojournalism showing the difficulty of carrying out medical activities safely and unhindered in armed conflict and other emergencies.

AlertNet spoke to Mani at the Visa pour l’Image international photojournalism festival in the southern French city of Perpignan, where he received the award earlier this month.

Fresh from another trip to Syria, he said people who had yet to flee embattled cities like Homs were struggling to get hold of basic necessities. “The area is sealed off, so very few things can enter. I heard reports that they are eating the food they have stored for winter,” he told AlertNet.

He also described the fear among civilians in a village where he stayed near the western city of Hama. Here, he said, a “massacre” had taken place two months before, in which more than 60 percent of the community had been killed in a government-backed attack.

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Suhair Atassi was beaten and detained for her involvement in protests at the start of Syria’s uprising, before going into hiding and being smuggled out of the country late last year.

Now an exile living in Paris, the prominent opposition activist is trying to drum up support for humanitarian aid in Syria where the conflict has escalated. News from Syria seems to get bloodier by the day with civilians killed, wounded and uprooted by clashes between forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and rebel groups.

For Atassi, who was born into a political family from Homs, it is important to remember that the 18-month Syrian “revolution” began with peaceful demonstrations against al-Assad’s rule.

As abuses by both sides in the war rage on with little intervention by foreign powers, the 40-year-old feels that Syrians who want the same democratic freedoms sought by activists in other Arab Spring countries have been abandoned by the international community.

Women, in particular, are suffering, and are being killed, raped and locked up for their political beliefs, Atassi says.

But they are refusing to bow to oppression and will continue struggling for their rights, she told TrustLaw in an interview at the Visa pour l’Image photojournalism festival in the southern French city of Perpignan, where she spoke on a panel about the Arab Spring hosted by Elle magazine earlier this month.

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Tunisian human rights activist Amira Yahyaoui recalls how, at the age of 17, she narrowly missed being shoved under a subway train. This is just one example of the threats and pressures her family faced for their opposition to the country’s then president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, who was ousted last year in a popular uprising.

During Ben Ali’s 23-year rule, Yahyaoui’s father, one of the North African country’s most distinguished judges, lost his job after sending an open letter to the president decrying corruption and the state of the justice system. Her cousin was arrested for publishing satirical articles about the former leader, and died from the torture he underwent.

Yahyaoui’s experiences left her with no alternative but to fight for democracy and freedom of expression in her country, she explains passionately.

Now 28 and back in Tunis after a spell in France, she is president of Al Bawsala, a non-profit organisation founded last October by young Tunisian activists, which aims to support the democratisation process and raise public awareness about politics.

Having shifted the focus of her efforts from the blogosphere back to the real world, Yahyaoui and her colleagues are pushing for transparency in the drafting of Tunisia’s new constitution, and lobbying for changes to parts they believe undermine rights and democratic freedoms.

Article 28, one of the most controversial sections of the draft text, defines women’s role as “complementary to the one of the men in the family”. A U.N. expert panel has said it places women on an unequal footing with men, and risks rolling back the gains in women’s rights made in Tunisia over the last five decades.

Yahyaoui spoke to TrustLaw after participating in a debate on the Arab Spring and women’s rights, organised by Elle magazine at the Visa pour l’Image international photojournalism festival in the southern French city of Perpignan this month.

She explained the reaction among Tunisian women to Article 28, and what they are doing to ensure the constitution enshrines equal rights for both sexes.

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In the Copenhagen Accord, struck at December’s U.N. climate summit, developed countries agreed to provide poorer nations with “new and additional resources” of about $30 billion by 2012 to help them limit their emissions and adapt to a warmer world.

But the pact, backed by some 120 nations, does not specify what funds count toward the 2012 pledge, known as “fast start.”

The World Resources Institute says donors had announced nearly $24 billion in “fast start” funds by the beginning of March, plus $3.5 billion for a forest preservation scheme.

But researchers say cash-strapped governments plan to divert some of the money from existing official development assistance (ODA) budgets rather than find new cash.

“There is a lot of slippery language around ‘new and additional’,” said Rob Bailey, a policy advisor on climate change for Oxfam.

Most governments also expect the climate change aid to count toward a separate U.N. target for donors to give 0.7 percent of their gross national income for overseas development.

The British government has said publicly it will provide “some climate finance” on top of its 0.7 percent international development commitment, but only from 2013.

Ed Miliband, energy and climate minister, told reporters last month there was “a pretty clear understanding” that fast start funding would not be additional to ODA pledges.

ON TOP OF DEVELOPMENT AID

But poorer nations say “fast start” climate funding should come on top of other development aid because climate change is adding to the human and financial cost of disasters, and making their social and economic development more expensive.

Quamrul Chowdhury, a negotiator for Bangladesh at U.N. climate talks, says using climate finance to fulfil development aid promises will be damaging to his country, which is already struggling to cope with rising sea levels and frequent floods.

“If (“fast start” funding) is not new and additional, and it is not over and above ODA, our whole development will be paralyzed, and how can (we meet) our goals for anti-poverty, education and healthcare programmes?” he said.

“We really want a major ramp-up of financial support, and also we want urgent and immediate adaptation finance.”

That sentiment was echoed by Bruno Sekoli of Lesotho, who chairs the group of poorest countries at the U.N. talks.

“We want to believe, because we trust our partners, that their commitments will be along this line,” Sekoli said.

“When that time comes, and we realize it is not new and additional, then I think it will be a major issue.”

Campaigners are urging donors to be more transparent about exactly what they are counting as climate finance, where it comes from, and the channels used to deliver it.

The European Union plans to report on its member states’ “fast start” funding before the next round of climate talks taking place in Bonn in June, although countries have yet to agree a common definition. The bloc has promised 2.4 billion euros ($3.2 billion) each year from 2010-2012.

Jamie Drummond, executive director of anti-poverty group ONE, urged donors to be honest.

“We know that the money (donors are) saying is for climate is already money taken from development. It’s a fact,” Drummond told Reuters. “They should be criticized for it, and then we need to move on to things we can change.”

(editing by Lin Noueihed)