Raqib Hameed Naik, a journalist based in the United States born in Doda district of Jammu and Kashmir in India, got the Aminah Assilmi Award in Media Excellence – 2021 from the Sound Vision Foundation USA for his reporting on Kashmir, Indian minorities, and Hindu nationalism.
On December 12, he received the prize at the Sound Vision Foundation’s annual luncheon in Houston, Texas.
Naik was also named a finalist for the coveted Thomson Foundation Young Journalist Award last month, competing against 300 journalists from 55 countries.
Naik primarily contributes to Al Jazeera. Earlier this year, one of his reports for Al Jazeera on US COVID financing obtained by Hindu right-wing organisations became a front-page news, resulting in widespread public scrutiny and media coverage of the development of Hindutva among the Indian diaspora. He received death threats for his explosive investigative report on the Covid-19 relief funds being received by “Hindu organisations based out of the United States”. This report was published on aljazeera.com on April 2, 2021 from the US. This seems to have put Raqib Ahmed in the crosshairs of the right-wing ecosystem which is extremely ‘sensitive’ to any criticism or questioning of their funds, organisations, and actions. Al Jazeera media network condemned the online harassment and death threats from Hindutva nationalists to Indian-Kashmiri journalist Raqib Hameed Naik.
The Chenab Times News Desk