Tag Archives: Shahina Nafeesa – Indian Journalist

Indian Journalist K.K. Shahina Among Winners of CPJ’s International Press Freedom Awards

Kochi, KERALA:

Shahina was one of the first Indian journalists to be charged under the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act for her work in Tehelka magazine.

Shahina K.K. Photo: Shafeeq Thamarassery/CPJ website

New Delhi: 

Indian journalist and senior editor of Outlook magazine Shahina K.K. is one of the journalists honoured in this year’s International Press Freedom Awards given by the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Shahina, the CPJ points out, was one of the first Indian journalists to be charged under the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act for her work in Tehelka magazine. The CPJ note continues:

“She has continued her reporting in various posts despite awaiting trial for a case opened in 2010, when local government officials in Karnataka state sought to criminalize her reporting published in Tehelka, a prominent investigative magazine where she worked at the time. Her report cast doubt on a police investigation into 2008 bomb blasts in Bengaluru, alleging that the police had fabricated witness statements to arrest a local Muslim cleric.

She faces three charges under the penal code, including criminal intimidation, intent to commit a criminal act, and criminal conspiracy, and one count under UAPA pertaining to threatening witnesses. 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. She has faced persistent online harassment and lewd threats, and in 2020, several right-wing publications falsely implicated her in that Bengaluru bombing.

Based in Kochi, in the southern state of Kerala, Shahina has worked as a reporter, production associate, and news anchor with well-known news outlets including Asianet News, Janayugom, Open, and The Federal. She also has contributed to The Washington Post.”

The CPJ has said in its note announcing Shahina’s win that this also highlights “India’s increasingly repressive environment for press freedom, with the targeting of journalists under draconian security laws, and toxic online campaigns particularly aimed at vilifying women journalists and ethnic or religious minorities.”

Other awardees for this year include Nika Gvaramia from Georgia (founder and director of independent broadcaster, Mtavari Arkhi), María Teresa Montaño from Mexico (investigative reporter and founder and editor of The Observer, a fact-checking and investigative website) and Ferdinand Ayité from Togo (head of L’Alternative, one of Togo’s top investigative outlets).

This year’s Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award from CPJ, which goes to “an individual who has shown extraordinary and sustained achievement in the cause of press freedom”, has been awarded to Alberto Ibargüen, who recently announced he is stepping down as president of the Knight Foundation after 18 years at its helm. “Under his leadership, the foundation invested over $2.3 billion in journalism, arts, economic development, and research. Ibargüen is the former publisher of the Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald. During his tenure, the Miami Herald won three Pulitzer Prizes and El Nuevo Herald won Spain’s Ortega y Gasset Prize for excellence in journalism. He served on the board of CPJ from 1993 to 2005,” CPJ has said.

source: http://www.thewire.in / The Wire / Home> Media / by The Wire Staff / November 20th, 2023

Shahina KK wins Chameli Devi Award

KERALA:

The Media Foundation has chosen Shahina KK as the winner of the Chameli Devi Award for an outstanding woman journalist. In her acceptance speech she spoke of her attempt to establish that the police conspired to forge a case against Abdul Madani after the Bangalore blasts. “I have always tried to espouse the cause of those who live on the margin and who cannot have their say,’’ she said.

She was awarded for work done while with Tehelka. She is now with Open magazine.

I am using this opportunity to explain who I am.

See, I happen to be a Muslim, but I am not a terrorist.

Unfortunately, anybody carrying a Muslim name, no matter whether he or she is a believer, agnostic or atheist has to keep this as an opening line on every occasion of a dialogue in public. I have hardly practiced any religion right from my adolescence yet I have to make this kind of a statement.

You may have an idea about what I am going to talk about. In fact this award gives me a great opportunity today to talk about the crime I have committed. I interviewed two of the prosecution witnesses in the infamous Bangalore blast case in which Kerala PDP leader Abdul Nasar Madani is an accused. Madani had spent 10 years in prison as an under-trail in the Coimbatore blast case of 1997 and later was exonerated in 2007. The firebrand orator, who once triggered some kind of belligerence among the post-Babri Masjid Kerala Muslim youth, in his second coming had made a public alliance with the left parties in the last Lok Sabha polls. A man who was speaking the language of democracy, a politician who was using the tools of parliamentary politics had been again taken by the police, this time from Karnataka, for his alleged involvement in the Bangalore blast case. He was arrested immediately after the Lok Sabha polls.

Two of the six prosecution witnesses in the case, Jose Thomas and Mohammed Jamal who is the younger brother of Madani, had approached the court alleging that their testimonies had been fabricated. The third witness was on death bed in a hospital in Ernakulam on the day the police recorded his testimony. He died four days later. Police records say that the testimony was recorded in Kannur, around 500 kms away from Ernakulam where he was admitted. The hospital records prove that on that day he was not in Kannur, but was very much in the hospital in Ernakulam. Speech continues here.

From The Hoot

source: http://www.nwmindia.org / NWMI – network of women in media, india / Home> Award Winners / January 29th, 2014