MUMBAI:CNN bagged four awards at The 23rd Annual News and Documentary Emmy Awards, hosted by the the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences earlier this week.
The channel won the Outstanding Individual Achievement in a Craft Direction for Exodus and Best Story in a Regular Scheduled Newscast in 2001 for Struggle for Islam. Saira Shah won two awards, the first for Outstanding Investigative Journalism Long Form for Beneath the Veil and the other for 'Outstanding Coverage of a Continuing Story Long Form for Unholy War.
The award winning Exodus by Sorious Samura investigates the attempts made by thousands of Africans to enter Europe illegally each year in search of a better life. In the documentary Samura travels to Mali, the Sahara Desert, Morocco and Spain as he follows West African exiles attempting to make their way to the "promised land" of Europe. He talks to refugees along the length of the route and reports on the hardships that compel them to embark on this perilous journey, fleeing from their native lands.
Struggle for Islam by Christiane Amanpour examines the many faces of Islam, through interviews with eminent scholars and practicing Muslims across the globe. It endeavours to find out how a religion that was at the heart of a flowering civilization, passing new ideas about medicine and architecture to the West during the Dark Ages, evolved in the modern era.
Beneath the Veil which won Saira Shah the award for 'Outstanding Investigative Journalism Long Form', traces her journey to her ancestral home in Afghanistan, and takes a look at life under the iron rule of the Taliban. Using secret footage, hidden cameras and with unprecedented access, Shah shows viewers the ruins of Kabul, public executions and the forbidden underground network of women struggling to survive. From the frontlines to the forbidden classrooms, the execution grounds to the ruined gardens of Shahs fathers homeland, this film takes a searing and disturbing look into the Afghanistan of Taliban rule.
Unholy War, which bagged the second award for Saira Shah is based on her return to the village of Mawmaii in Afghanistan to follow up on the story of three girls whose mother was shot dead by the Taliban in front of them. On her journey to find the girls, who were first seen in Beneath the Veil, she unravels the story of a long-suffering nation that has all but forgotten what peace is and meets the child soldiers, victims, smugglers, tribal leaders, fighters and ordinary Afghans caught up in the war against terrorism.
