Outlook’s Shahina K.K. has won the Committee to Protect Journalists International Press Freedom Award for 2023. She is among four winners this year from different countries. According to the CPJ, the award is meant to “honor courageous journalists from around the world”. The awards will be presented on November 16, 2023, in New York City.
“Shahina is a veteran Indian journalist who has worked across print and broadcast media to shed light on issues such as gender, human rights, and marginalized communities, along with the injustices they face. Shahina, currently a senior editor for Outlook magazine, was one of the country’s first journalists to be charged under a draconian anti-terror law extensively weaponized against journalists in the country for over a decade. She has continued her reporting despite awaiting trial for a case opened in 2010, when local government officials sought to criminalize her reporting on a questionable police investigation. As of June 2023, Shahina is out on bail pending trial. If convicted, she faces a maximum of three years in prison and a fine. A Muslim by birth, Shahina has also been subjected to extensive harassment by Indian right-wing groups seeking to silence her reporting on religious minorities and vulnerable caste groups,” the CPJ says about Shahina.
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Shahina has written on varied subjects for Outlook, including on gender and human rights, and injustices faced by marginalised communities. Her story titled ‘Gender Journey' explored a feminist approach to Uniform Civil Code and its long history of engagement with the idea of UCC. Her story 'Taking the Bull by Its Horns' talks about how despite structural discrimination, the queer community is making its presence felt in the world of sports.
Speaking on her win, Shahina says, “I did this story in 2010 when I was working as the correspondent of Tehelka. It was an investigative story that exposed a bogus charge sheet against Abdul Nasar Madani, the Malyali Muslim cleric who has been arraigned as an accused in the 2008 Bangalore bomb blast case. I interviewed three of the witnesses in the case (two from Karnataka and one from Kerala) and it was brought to light that their witness statements were fabricated and twisted. As soon as I returned to Kerala, I came to know that an FIR was filed against me for ‘intimidating the witnesses to change their statements in the court in favour of Abdul Nasar Madani’. According to the police, ‘I threatened the witnesses to kill them if they were not willing to act as I said’. Initially, I was slapped with sections 506, 34 and 120 B of IPC. During the argument on my anticipatory bail, the police added UAPA clause 22 too. It took seven months to get the anticipatory bail from the High Court of Karnataka.
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The case that started in 2010 is still on. I am yet to go through the trial. It has been a tough journey for the last 13 years of endless runs between police stations, courthouses and lawyers' offices. I dedicate this award to all the journalists who are beaten, killed and framed for doing their job.”
Among the other winners of the press freedom award included Nika Gvamaria (Georgia), founder of the Georgian broadcaster Mtavari Arkhi; Maria Teresa Montaño (Mexico), founder and editor of The Observer; and Ferdinand Ayité (Togo), director of the investigative outlet L’Alternative.
Meanwhile, Alberto Ibargüen, the outgoing president of the Knight Foundation, won CPJ’s Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award for 2023. The Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award is presented annually to an individual who has shown extraordinary and sustained achievement in the cause of press freedom.
Established in 1991, the Committee to Protect Journalists is a New York City-based independent, non-governmental organisation that focuses on recognising individuals, with a focus on local and international media coverage in countries around the world where violations of press freedom are particularly serious. The CPJ International Press Freedom Awards are presented annually to honour journalists and publications for showing courage in defending press freedom despite facing attacks, threats, or imprisonment.
