2022 Pulitzer Prize winner Sanna Irshad Mattoo is barred from boarding a flight to Paris on Saturday 2 July. The 28-year-old man, originally from Kashmir, was invited to the Arles Photography Gathering, which took place from 4 July to 25 September. His work is exhibited there as part of the Serendipity Arles scholarship 2020, supported by the French Institute in India.
The Reuters photographer was stopped at Delhi airport despite having a valid visa for France. “The stamp on my passport said my ticket had been canceled and the immigration officer didn’t tell me anymore, I was just told I couldn’t travel”he said back in Srinagar.
I am scheduled to travel from Delhi to Paris today for a book launch and photography exhibition as one of the 10 awards… https://t.co/MaCZsau900
Sanna Irshad Mattoo banned from leaving Indian Territory in “request from Jammu and Kashmir Police”, according to a government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, was not authorized to raise the question. Contacted by World, Jammu and Kashmir police did not respond. French Embassy in New Delhi, who continues to applaud the presence of Indian artists in Arles in his press release, also declined to comment on this matter.
The Kashmiri photographer was part of a team of Reuters journalists who were awarded the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in the magazine photography category for their coverage of the coronavirus pandemic in India. Sanna Irshad Mattoo has traveled by pony and on foot to one of the country’s most remote vaccination camps. At an altitude of about 3,400 meters above sea level, he has taken a photo of a caregiver injecting a dose of coronavirus vaccine into a herder.
“Systematic pattern of harassment of journalists”
Since the revocation of Kashmir’s partial autonomy on August 5, 2019 by Narendra Modi’s government, the noose against journalists in the region has tightened. Some are barred from flying overseas, particularly to attend conferences or award ceremonies. “The travel ban is part of a systematic pattern of harassment of journalists in Kashmir”deplores the Committee to Protect Journalists, an American organization for the defense of press freedom.
In September 2019, Gowhar Geelani, a journalist from Kashmir, was unable to participate in a training program organized by Deutsche Welle radio in Germany. In October 2019, Bilal Bhat, a Kashmiri journalist and human rights defender, had to stop traveling to Malaysia. In 2021, Zahid Rafiq, a former journalist from the Himalayan region, suffers the same fate, when he is about to travel to the United States to teach at Cornell University. This list is not exhaustive.
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