Thank you dear Huma for asking me to participate in the B & W photo challenge, which started in Turkey as a campaign against femicide, violence against women, and the brutal murder of 27-year-old Pinar Gültekin. Without using the hashtag, I would love to celebrate kick-ass women of color from the global south.
This is Masrat Zahra, a Kashmiri woman.
‘Masrat Zahra is a freelance Kashmiri photojournalist. She focuses on stories about local communities and women. She won the 2020 Anja Niedringhaus Courage in Photojournalism award from International Women’s Media Foundation.
She was born in Hawal, Srinagar, and studied journalism at Central University of Kashmir. She photographs the Kashmir conflict and her work has appeared in The Washington Post, The New Humanitarian, TRT World, Al Jazeera, The Caravan, The Sun, News Arab and The World Weekly.
On 3 August 2019, before the clampdown in Jammu and Kashmir, she was asked to submit work for Journalists Under Fire, an exhibition in New York city. Due to a communications blackout that started on 5 August 2019 (imposed by the Indian government), this offer could not be fulfilled.
Zahra was booked under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act by Jammu and Kashmir Police in April 2020 for Facebook posts that were deemed antinational.’