Vale John Pilger

Journalist, author and filmmaker John Pilger has died, aged 84.

An Australian based in the UK, Pilger was a critic of Australian, US and UK foreign policy. As a journalist, he wrote for London’s Daily Mirror from 1963 to 1986, becoming its chief foreign correspondent, and covering events such as the Vietnam War and the Cambodian genocide after the Pol Pot regime. Pilger wrote and edited a range of books, such as The New Rulers of the World (Verso, 2002), A Secret Country (Vintage, 1992) and Hidden Agendas (Vintage, 1998). He also produced over 50 documentary films, including Vietnam: The quiet mutiny (1970), The Secret Country: The First Australians fight back (1985) and Utopia (2013). In 2009, Pilger was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize for ‘enabling the voices of the powerless to be heard’, and for ‘commitment to peace with justice by exposing and holding governments to account for human rights abuses and for fearless challenges to censorship in any form’, according to the jury’s citation.

Pictured: John Pilger at Ubud Readers & Writers Festival, 2012, credit: Anggara Mahendra.

Category: Obituaries