Manisha Ganguly’s investigative film Finding My Torturer co-produced with BBC Eye has won Best Investigation in the Amnesty Media Awards 2023. The awards ceremony took place on 26 April at Amnesty UK’s Human Rights Action Centre in London.
The Amnesty Media Awards celebrate outstanding human rights journalism, recognising the courage and determination of journalists and editors who risk their lives to report on human rights cases. The Awards recognise human rights journalism from the past year.
Dr Ganguly is a multi-award winning investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker. She was named Journalist of the Year 2022 by One Young World and has been included on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for Media and Marketing in Europe.
Produced for BBC Eye, Finding My Torturer follows the search for a Russian official who tortured at least 11 women following their arrests at an anti-war demonstration. Two of the detainees recorded their abuse and were able to leak audio to the press. Despite international outrage, the Russian authorities did not open a criminal case. Seeking justice, the women set out to find their abuser themselves.
Dr Ganguly completed her PhD at the University of Westminster where she researched the impact that OSINT, AI and automation have had on investigative journalism. She also specialises in using open-source technology to document and expose human rights abuses in conflict zones. Her documentaries have exposed war crimes in Libya and Syria, human trafficking in the Middle East and uncovered the training of the killers of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi. She currently works as an Investigations Correspondent at The Guardian, and her documentaries for the BBC World Service have been broadcast to over 300 million people worldwide.
Speaking about the award, Ganguly said: “Thank you to the judges of the Amnesty awards for recognising our film. It is a testament to the bravery of the 3 women survivors who risked their life to go on the record with us, and also had the courage to track down their torturer. The torturers identified in our film have since been sanctioned by the EU and have had their EU assets frozen. I dedicate both these wins to every Russian anti-war activist risking their life to fighting a brutal and unjust invasion.”
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