Journalism’s prestigious George Polk Awards have been announced.  Among 2022’s winners is former Democracy Now! producer Sharif Abdel Kouddous, a reporter for the independent Egyptian outlet Mada Masr.  Sharif won the foreign television award for “The Killing of Shireen Abu Akleh” along with Al Jazeera “Fault Lines” senior producer Kavitha Chekuru and executive producer Laila Al-Arian. 

New York, February 22 (RHC)-- Journalism’s prestigious George Polk Awards have been announced.  Among 2022’s winners is former Democracy Now! producer Sharif Abdel Kouddous, a reporter for the independent Egyptian outlet Mada Masr.  Sharif won the foreign television award for “The Killing of Shireen Abu Akleh” along with Al Jazeera “Fault Lines” senior producer Kavitha Chekuru and executive producer Laila Al-Arian. 

Their documentary investigates the killing of Palestinian American journalist and longtime Al Jazeera correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh by Israeli forces last May during a raid in the occupied West Bank.  It draws on videos and eyewitness accounts of Abu Akleh’s killing to establish that she was fatally shot in the head by an Israeli sniper, a finding supported by numerous other press investigations. 

Shireen and other reporters were wearing blue helmets and blue flak jackets clearly emblazoned with the word “Press.”