We must dare to show people’s suffering

A few years ago, a photograph of Alan Kurdi, a three-year-old boy who washed up on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea, was published on a Turkish newspaper’s website and quickly spread around the world. At first, the image was shared on social media, but it soon ended up on the pages of large newspapers as well.

The photo, which was taken by Turkish journalist Nilüfer Demir, reached iconic status perhaps faster than any image before it. The publication of the image also led to criticism. The Finnish newspaper Turun Sanomat decided against publishing the image on the grounds that a similar image of a Finnish child would “never in a million years” be published.