New Delhi, October 18, 2022 (PPI-OT):Indian authorities stopped, today, the Pulitzer-winning journalist from Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir, Sanna Irshad Mattoo, from flying to New York to receive her award. Srinagar-based photojournalist, Sanna Irshad Matoo, in a tweet said that she was stopped at the Delhi airport’s immigration counter and prevented from traveling abroad as she was on the way to New York to receive her Pulitzer Prize. “I was on my way to receive the Pulitzer award in New York but I was stopped at immigration at Delhi airport and barred from traveling internationally despite holding a valid US visa and ticket,” she said.
Sanna Irshad added that this was the second time that she was stopped without reason or cause. Despite reaching out to several officials after what happened a few months ago, I never received any response, she said, adding that “being able to attend the award ceremony was an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me.” The 28-year-old Kashmiri woman photojournalist won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography in May along with four Reuter’s photojournalists for their coverage of the devastating second wave of Covid-19 in India.
Sanna Irshad was also stopped from travelling to a photography exhibition to France in July, this year. As per reports, several journalists from IIOJK have been put on a ‘no-fly’ list after the repeal of the special status of the occupied territory by the Narendra Modi-led fascist Indian government on August 05, 2019, to bar them from international travelling. Earlier, noted Kashmiri journalist Gowhar Geelani was stopped from travelling to Germany at the Delhi airport in September 2019.
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