Indian-origin journalist wins Pulitzer Prize for exposing China's vast infrastructure for detaining Muslims

Megha Rajagopalan an Indianorigin journalist along with two contributors has won the Pulitzer Prize for innovative investigative reports that exposed a vast infrastructure of prisons and mass internment camps secretly built by China for detaining hundreds of thousands of Muslims in its restive Xinjiang regionRajagopalan from BuzzFeed News is among two Indianorigin journalists who won the US top journalism award on FridayTampa Bay Times Neil Bedi won for local reporting Bedi along with Kathleen McGrory has been awarded the prize for the series exposing a Sheriffs Office initiative that used computer modelling to identify people believed to be future crime suspects About 1000 people were monitored under the programme including childrenBedi is an investigative reporter for the Tampa Bay TimesAlso read Carey Mulligan Zoe Kazan to star as reporters who broke Harvey Weinstein storyWhat Kathleen and Neil unearthed in Pasco County has had a profound impact on the community said Mark Katches Times executive editor This is what the best investigative journalism can do and why it is so essentialRajagopalans Xinjiang series won the Pulitzer Prize in the International Reporting categoryIn 2017 not long after China began to detain thousands of Muslims in Xinjiang Rajagopalan was the first to visit an internment camp at a time when China denied that such places existed BuzzFeed News saidIn response the government tried to silence her revoking her visa and ejecting her from the country BuzzFeed News wrote in its entry for the prizeIt would go on to cut off access to the entire region for most Westerners and stymie journalists The release of basic facts about detainees slowed to a trickleWorking from London and refusing to be silenced Rajagopalan partnered with two contributors Alison Killing a licensed architect who specialises in forensic analysis of architecture and satellite images of buildings and Christo Buschek a programmer who builds tools tailored for data journalistsThe blazing Xinjiang stories shine desperately needed light on one of the worst human rights abuses of our time said Mark Schoofs editorinchief of BuzzFeed News Minutes after she won Rajagopalan told BuzzFeed News she wasnt even watching the ceremony live because she wasnt expecting to win She only found out when Schoofs called to congratulate her on the victoryIm in complete shock I did not expect this Rajagopalan said over the phone from LondonShe said she was deeply grateful to the teams of people who worked with her on this including her collaborators Killing and Buschek her editor Alex Campbell BuzzFeed News public relations team and the organisations that funded their work including the Pulitzer CenterRajagopalan also acknowledged the courage of the sources who spoke to them despite the risk and threat of retaliation against them and their familiesIm so grateful they stood up and were willing to talk to usiquest she said iquestIt takes so much unbelievable courage to do thatThe three of them set out to analyse thousands of satellite images of the Xinjiang region an area bigger than Alaska to try to answer a simple question Where were Chinese officials detaining as many as 1 million Uyghurs Kazakhs and other Muslim minoritiesFor months the trio compared censored Chinese images with uncensored mapping software They began with an enormous dataset of 50000 locationsBuschek built a custom tool to sort through those images Then the team had to go through thousands of images one by one verifying many of the sites against other available evidence BuzzFeed News wrote in its prize entryThey ultimately identified more than 260 structures that appeared to be fortified detention camps Some of the sites were capable of holding more than 10000 people and many contained factories where prisoners were forced into labourThe groundbreaking technological reporting was also accompanied by extensive oldfashioned shoe leather journalismBarred from China Rajagopalan instead travelled to its neighbour Kazakhstan where many Chinese Muslims have sought refugeThere Rajagopalan located more than two dozen people who had been prisoners in the Xinjiang camps winning their trust and convincing them to share their nightmarish accounts with the worldPulitzer prizes are awarded yearly in twentyone categories In twenty of the categories each winner receives a certificate and a USD 15000 cash award The winner in the public service category is awarded a gold medalThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever