Zajcek, Jasna

Jasna Zajcek was born in Berlin in 1973 and started working as a journalist for print, TV and radio in 1994. For the past eight years she mainly worked for the German daily Die Tageszeitung (“taz”), focusing on Syria, Lebanon and on military issues. Prior to splitting her time between Damascus and Beirut she studied Journalism, Arabic Language and Islamic studies. In2005 she was awarded the CNN Journalist Award for an undercover story with the taz about a US-Army war scenario training camp at a NATO-base. For DIE ZEIT-Travels she regularly worked as a tour guide in Syria. Her first book, "Ramadan Blues", is about Christian-Muslim cultural and religious interaction and also documents Syrian activists who where working undercover in Syria in 2006. To write her second book, "Unter Soldatinnen" („Amongst soldiers“) she visited female members of the German army in the countries of their engagement. Jasna was the last German freelancer in Damascus when the uprising began in March 2011 and stayed until the taz called her back at the end of April 2011.