Exiled Kashmiri photojournalist seeks 'normal life't in U.S.

by NPC Press Freedom Team volunteer Pat Host

Masrat Zahra, a Kashmiri photojournalist living in exile since March 2021, simply wants an opportunity to continue her award-winning work in the United States.

Zahra, from India-occupied Kashmir, is being persecuted by the Indian government for her work, which focuses on human rights abuses of women and children in Kashmir. She has been published in publications such as The Washington Post, Al Jazeera, TRT World, The Sun, The New Humanitarian, and Getty Images, among others.

The Indian government in 2020 charged Zahra under the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, a terrorism law that brings seven years imprisonment. The Indian government harasses her family, has beaten her father, and has arrested her Kashmiri journalism colleagues for practicing their work. Some of her colleagues, arrested years ago, remain incarcerated.

Zahra said that she is unable to return to Kashmir.

“My name is on the no-fly list,” she said. “If I go back, I have death threats. I'll get imprisoned for seven years. Or I'll get killed. My passport will be confiscated upon my arrival. I won't be able to leave the country again.”

After leaving Kashmir, Zahra spent more than a year in Germany before arriving in the U.S. This summer, she risks being deported to Kashmir because of her inability to secure a long-term visa to stay in the U.S.

Zahra concluded a Knight-Wallace Fellowship for accomplished journalists at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor that ended on April 25. Her U.S. J-1 visa, which is a non-immigrant visa for individuals approved to participate in exchange visitor programs in the U.S., ends in August.

She is pursuing an EB-1 visa, which is for people who demonstrate extraordinary ability, but has been told there is a backlog for processing applications.

Zahra has had a difficult time while living in the U.S. She is unable to work for U.S. news outlets. Her health has suffered due to stress about her family, her work, and her visa status. She's been diagnosed with a blood disorder and lost her health insurance when her fellowship ended.

Zahra, who has practiced photojournalism since 2015, wants to live something other than a refugee life.

“I just want to be a normal human being and work,” she said.

Zahra in 2020 received both the International Women's Media Foundation's Anja Niedringhaus Courage in Photojournalism Award and the Peter Mackler Award for Courageous and Ethical Journalism.

Click here to read the full interview.

For an extended list of other activities in honor of World Press Freedom Day on May 3, click here.

María Lilly Delgado is a co-founder of Traces of Impunity, a data and investigative journalism effort that highlights human rights violations in Nicaragua. Until late 2021, she worked as a freelance correspondent for Noticiero Univision, reporting on the socio-political crisis in Nicaragua until threats prompted her to go into exile in Miami.

Muhamadjon Kabirov is the editor-in-chief of Azda TV, a Tajik-language news network based in Poland, and board president of the Foundation for Intercultural Integration, which assists refugees in Poland.

Sonny Swe is a co-founder of Frontier Myanmar, an independent media organization now operating out of northern Thailand that covers Burmese news. Swe previously spent nearly a decade in prison for breaching the military junta’s censorship laws during his time running The Myanmar Times, an English-language newspaper that he also founded.

Masrat Zahra is an independent photojournalist from the Indian-administered region of Kashmir. Her photographs of human rights violations prompted the Indian government in 2020 to charge her with “anti-national activities.” Fearing arrest if she is forced to return to India, Masrat is a Knight Wallce fellow at the University of Michigan.

Moderator: Preethi Nallu is the global director at Report for the World and the former founding editor of the news outlet Refugees Deeply