New York: The Committee to Protect Journalists, an independent watchdog body, has denounced as “arbitrary and excessive” the Indian authorities’ action to prevent Kashmiri photojournalist Sanna Irshad Mattoo to travel abroad and collect her Pulitzer Prize in New York, while calling for ending the persecution of journalists covering the situation in occupied Kashmir.
Earlier, according to media reports, immigration officials at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi stopped Mattoo, who was flying to New York to receive the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in a ceremony scheduled for Thursday.
Ms Mattoo, a freelance photojournalist, was part of a Reuters team that won the Pulitzer Prize for feature photography for their coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic in India, according to the journalist and the Pulitzer website.
Officials declined to give Mattoo any reason for being barred from leaving the country, despite holding a valid passport and US visa, she told CPJ. She said on Twitter that attending the award ceremony is “a once in a lifetime opportunity” for her.
“There is no reason why Kashmiri journalist Sanna Irshad Mattoo, who had all the right travel documents and has won a Pulitzer–one of the most prestigious journalism awards–should have been prevented from travelling abroad,” Beh Lih Yi, CPJ’s Asia programme coordinator, in Frankfurt, Germany, said in a statement. Web Desk
