Syrian Kurdish journalist wins Kurt Schork’s best news fixer award
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – Syrian Kurdish journalist Hisham Arafat won on Tuesday Kurt Schork’s best news fixer award for his access to Islamic State (ISIS) militants held in prisons in northeast Syria.
Kurt Schork Awards honor courageous journalists who report on conflict, corruption, and injustice. They are named after Kurt Schork, an American freelance journalist who lost his life in Sierra Leone in 2000 while working for Reuters.
In a written statement to North Press on Wednesday, Arafat expressed that he views his victory as a collective “achievement for all his fellow media colleagues in northeast Syria.”
He expressed his hope that this accomplishment would shed light on the media landscape in northern Syria and convey the situation “accurately and impartially” to the world.
Arafat hails from the Turkish-occupied city of Sere Kaniye (Ras al-Ain) in northeast Syria. In October 2019, Turkish forces, along with their opposition factions of the Syrian National Army (SNA), occupied the cities of Sere Kaniye and Tel Abyad and their surrounding areas after a military operation dubbed ‘Peace Spring’. The invasion caused the displacement of approximately 300,000 of the region’s original inhabitants.
In addition to Arafat, Japanese reporter Asami Terajima won the Local Reporter Award for her covering in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, and French freelance journalist Lea Polverini won the Freelance Award for her series looking at Muslim minorities subject to persecution in China’s Xinjiang territories.
Arafat worked as an editor for the English Department of North Press Agency in 2020 during which he worked on many investigations and reports on ISIS women, Hawl Camp, the situation of Sere Kaniye and Tel Abyad under Turkey’s control, and human rights violations by SNA factions in Afrin.
In his video recording to Reuters, Arafat said that he was “incredibly” honored to win the award and talked about a “painful” story through which he shed light on the Turkish occupation of his hometown Sere Kaniye.
“Fixers and journalists in Syria face constant risks from danger on the ground to finding accurate information. We are committed to share the truth no matter what,” he said.
By Agid Meshmesh