Kashmiri journalist blocked from leaving India to receive Pulitzer Prize in New York

It is the second time Sanna Irshad Mattoo says she has been barred from travelling outside India

Sanna Irshad Mattoo says she was stopped at Delhi airport (Sanna Irshad Mattoo / Instagram)

A Pulitzer prize-winning journalist says she has been barred from leaving India to fly to New York to receive the prestigious award.

Sanna Irshad Mattoo, a multimedia journalist with Reuters, issued a statement on social media on Tuesday evening in which she said she was on the way to receive the Pulitzer Prize, but was “stopped at immigration at Delhi airport and barred from travelling internationally despite holding a valid US visa and ticket”.

The 28-year-old journalist from Kashmir was given the Pulitzer for her work during the Covid pandemic, which drew wide recognition and several accolades.

She won the prize along with her other colleagues at Reuters: Amit Dave, Adnan Abidi and the late photojournalist Danish Siddiqui.

Mattoo expressed disappointment at the Indian government and pointed out that this was the second time she was “stopped without reason or cause”.

She also said she reached out to several officials when she was barred from travelling the first time, but did not get any response from them.

She added that “being able to attend the award ceremony was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” for her.

Mattoo was also barred from leaving the country in July this year when she was about to fly to Paris, despite having a visa and all the required travel documents. She was going there for a book launch and a photography exhibition.

Social media users were left shocked after the journalist shared the news. The Kashmiri journalist received support from her colleagues, some of whom expressed their anger and accused the Narendra Modi government of trying to silence the country’s journalists.

“Very sorry to see this for the second time,” wrote journalist Vasundhara Sirnate.

“Also a self goal (own goal) by the authorities,” added another journalist, Smita Sharma.

“This is awful, I’m so sorry. Standing with you,” wrote one social media commentator.

“What a shame of a Govt we have in this country [sic],” said another.

“The pettiness of the Modi Govt is sickening. She won the #Pulitzer for her coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic. Cannot believe how low and sick this Party [the ruling Hindu nationalistic Bharatiya Janata Party] and all its people can go,” said author Sangita Nambiar.

Others were disturbed by the reaction of certain sections of the Indian public to the news.

“Indian authorities keep blocking a Kashmiri Muslim photojournalist from leaving the country, this time to collect a [Pulitzer Prize]. Hinduvta activists are in the replies celebrating like this makes them look good too,” wrote freelance journalist Alex Tiffin.

Mattoo’s work has been published in several national and international publications.

She was also the Magnum Foundation’s Photography and Social Justice Fellow in 2021. Mattoo graduated in convergent journalism from the Central University of Kashmir.

In September last year, The Wire reported that, in the past two years, “more than 40 journalists in Kashmir have either been called for a background check, summoned or raided”.

The Wire’s report also said authorities had placed 43 individuals on the no-fly list, of whom 22 were journalists.

The Hurriyat Conference, a separatist organisation in Kashmir, tweeted in response to the news on Tuesday: “The methods for this travel ban – a human rights violation – have been perfected over the decades by a regime with different characters. The objective has always been the same – to obfuscate the reality and distort the truth because the truth shall set us free.”

The Indian authorities have not yet commented pubicly on why Mattoo was blocked from leaving the country.