Kashmiri journalist Sanna Irshad Mattoo said she was prevented from flying to the United States by Indian authorities to collect her Pulitzer Prize award even though she had a valid visa and ticket.
Pulitzer Prize is regarded as the highest national honor in journalism.
The 28-year-old photojournalist is part of a four-member Reuters team which won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography for their coverage of the coronavirus pandemic in India.
“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 U.S. visa and ticket,” Mattoo tweeted.
“Being able to attend the award ceremony was a once in a lifetime opportunity for me” Sanna added.
She posted a photograph of her passport with a U.S. visa and her ticket with a red stamp indicating that her travel had been canceled “without reason or cause.”
The photojournalist said she was stopped by immigration authorities at New Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport late on Tuesday and prevented from boarding. In July too, she was stopped in a similar manner at the same airport while on her way to Paris for a book launch and photography exhibition.
“This is a huge shame,” said Geeta Seshu, founder of the Free Speech Collective, an independent organization that advocates press freedom. “Totally condemnable. It is incomprehensible. What on Earth does the Indian government fear.”
The U.S. State Department said it was aware of the reports that Mattoo had been prevented from traveling to the United States and is tracking developments.
Mattoo hails from the Srinagar district of the Indian-held Kashmir where journalists have long been under close scrutiny by local and national authorities, who also strictly control access for foreign reporters who want to travel there.
India’s ranking in the World Press Freedom Index this year dropped to 150th place from previous year’s 142nd rank. “The violence against journalists, the politically partisan media and the concentration of media ownership all demonstrate that press freedom is in crisis in ‘the world’s largest democracy,’” according to media watchdog Reporters Without Borders.