Kemal Kurspahic is the former editor-in-chief of the Bosnian Independent Daily Oslobodjenje in Sarajevo and, since February 1997, an editor at The Connection Newspapers, McLean, Virginia, USA. In the first year of Mr. Kurspahic's editorialship, Oslobodjenje was named The Paper of the Year in former Yugoslavia in 1989. But the paper made journalistic history by being published every day out of the atomic bomb shelter in the totally destroyed building of Oslobodjenje during the siege of Sarajevo April 1992-November 1995.

Mr. Kurspahic has received a few prestigious international awards such as: International Editor of the Year in 1993 (World Press Review - New York); The Courage in Journalism Award in 1992 (International Women's Media Foundation - Washington, D.C.) and Bruno Kreisky Award for Human Rights in 1993 (Dr. Bruno Kreisky Foundation - Vienna, Austria). Mr. Kurspahic was awarded the Nieman fellowship at Harvard University in 1994 concentrating his work at Harvard on the international and media studies.

Oslobodjenje has received many awards including The Paper of the Year Award in 1992 (BBC and Granada TV - Great Britain), Freedom Award in 1993 (Dagens nyheter-Stockholm and Politiken Copenhagen), Oscar Romero Award 1993 (The Rothko Chapel - Houston, Texas), Nieman Foundation's Louis M. Lyons Award for conscience and integrity in journalism in 1993 (Harvard University - USA), Achievements in Journalism Award in 1993 (Inter Press Service - Rome), Andrei Sakharov Award for Human Rights 1993 (European Parliament - Strasbourg, France) and some others.

Kemal Kurspahic has published three books: The White House in 1984 on the presidential elections in the United States, Letters from the War in 1992, the first book published in the besieged city of Sarajevo, and As Long as Sarajevo Exists in 1997 in the USA. He also contributed to some other books. Mr. Kurspahic's op-ed pieces have been published in numerous prestigious dailies in the USA such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The International Herald Tribune, Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, Miami Herald as well as in the Het Parool and Volksrant in Holland, Dagensnyheter in Sweden, Politiken in Denmark, De Standaard in Belgium, Der Tagesspiegel and Die Tageszeitung in Germany and other European dailies. Mr. Kurspahic was granted interviews by some of the most prominent international leaders including President of the United States Ronald Reagan, Secretary-General of the United Nations Javier Perez de Cuellar, the late Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and some others.

Mr. Kurspahic was born on December 1, 1946 in Mrkonjic-Grad, Bosnia Herzegovina. He became a small-town correspondent for Oslobodjenje while in the first grade at his high school in Sanski Most in October 1962. As a student at Law Faculty at the Belgrade University, he was editor of the Weekly Student during the year of student's unrest in Europe in 1968. He became a professional correspondent for Oslobodjenje in Belgrade in 1969 and since then was a correspondent in Jajce (1971-1973), editor of Sports, Politics and Newsroom departments in Oslobodjenje (1974-1981), correspondent in New York (1981-1985), deputy editor-in-chief (1985-1988). In December 1988 he became the first editor-in-chief elected by the editorial staff of Oslobodjenje.