Jailed Kashmiri journalist Irfan Mehraj, digital and TV journalist Akanksha Saxena, and Srinagar-based journalist Khalid Khan have been announced as the winners of the 2024 Human Rights and Religious Freedom Journalism Awards (HRRFJ).
The awards, organised by the Indian American Muslim Council, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group, were presented at a ceremony in Chicago, Illinois. This year, the competition received over 210 entries across four categories.
The prestigious award for ‘Best Video Story on Human Rights and Religious Freedom’ was jointly won, with the top honour going to the three journalists from Deutsche Welle for their impactful documentary, “On Drugs – Kashmir’s Heroin Epidemic.”
The piece stresses upon the growing heroin crisis in Kashmir and lives of people ravaged by addiction in the region.
Among the finalists, Tej Bahadur Singh from Newsreel Asia was recognised for his work titled “UNEQUAL LIVES | Everyday Struggles of Dalits in Gujarat,” which explores the persistent struggles faced by the Dalit community in Gujarat.
Danish Faooq Pandit from The Wire was also acknowledged for his compelling report “Haldwani Unrest: Violence, Arrests and Unanswered Questions,” which scrutinises the violence and ongoing tensions in Haldwani.
Saptarshi Basak from The Quint made it to the final list with his moving documentary, “One Year of Manipur Violence: Horrors of Relief Camps — From Imphal to Churachandpur,” depicting the grim realities of life in relief camps following the violence in Manipur.
According to a Human Rights Watch statement issued earlier, said, “While on a professional assignment on 20 March 2023, Mehraj was summoned for questioning and detained by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) of India in Srinagar under provisions of the Indian Penal Code and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.”
Irfan has been booked under the draconian UAPA. According to the NIA, Irfan was previously summoned to Delhi in a case related to “NGO terror funding”. The NIA in its press note claimed he was a “close associate” of the Kashmiri human rights defender Khurram Parvez.
In June 2023, United Nations experts expressed serious concerns regarding the charges against and arrest of Mehraj and Parvez, stating that their continued detention is ‘designed to delegitimize their human rights work and obstruct monitoring of the human rights situation in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir.’
On 7 March 2024, UN experts sounded the alarm on the “harassment and prolonged detention of human rights defenders and journalists” in the country.
