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Ramita Navai

British journalist and author (born 1973) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ramita Navai
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Ramita Navai (Persian: رامیتا نوایی; born 21 July 1973) is a British journalist, documentary maker, and author. She is known for her investigative human rights reporting in dangerous environments and has reported from over 40 countries.

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Navai has won many awards, including two Emmy Awards,[1][2] two Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards,[3][4] and two Royal Television Society Awards,[5][6] as well as literary awards, including the Debut Political Book of the Year Award for City of Lies: Love, Sex, Death and the Search for Truth in Tehran.[7]

Navai appeared as herself in a scene with Mandy Patinkin in the TV series Homeland.[8] She has been a guest on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart[9] and has been interviewed about her life and work by Terry Gross for NPR’s Fresh Air.[10]

She is the creator and host of The Line of Fire, a Top 10 Apple podcast about the moment of facing death.[11]

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Early life and education

Ramita Navai was born in Tehran, Iran, on 21 July 1973. Following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, she and her family permanently returned to London, where her mother grew up.[12] Navai attended Putney High School and has a postgraduate degree in journalism from City, University of London, where she was recognized as Young Journalist of the Year (2003) by the Broadcast Journalism Training Council for her short film on transgender legislation in the UK.[13]

She was voted Alumna of the Year of the Girls’ Day School Trust in 2023 for her work with “women’s and girls’ issues in some of the most war-torn and conflicted regions in the world”.[14]

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Career

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Navai began her career in 2003 as the Tehran correspondent for The Times. She then joined Channel 4's critically acclaimed current affairs series Unreported World in 2006, making 20 documentaries. Her reports included vigilante killings in Guatemala, gang assassins in El Salvador, war in South Sudan, blood diamonds in Zimbabwe, femicide in Papua New Guinea, and state violence against Amazonian tribes in Peru.

Navai and director Wael Dabbous were the first Western TV documentary crew to film undercover with Syrian activists and fighters in 2011,[15] for which she won her first Emmy Award.[16]

Navai also made various features for ITN/Channel 4 News, including investigating child sex trafficking in India, [citation needed] and police gang-killings in Brazil.[citation needed]

Her investigative feature exposing a people-smuggling kidnap gang violently holding hundreds of refugees for ransom resulted in the Macedonian police arresting 16 people traffickers and rescuing nearly 200 refugees in raids.[5] [6] The report won The Foreign Press Association News Story of the Year,[citation needed] as well as a Royal Television Society award.[17]

Since 2016, Navai has been making investigative documentaries for Channel 4’s Dispatches, Frontline PBS and ITV’s Exposure, about subjects including the war against ISIS and Shia militia assassins in Iraq.

Her documentary India’s Rape Scandal, about the cover-up of rapes in India by police and powerful politicians, was named as one of the Top 10 TV programmes of 2021 by the UK’s The Observer.[18]

For her documentary No Country for Women (ITV)/Afghanistan Undercover (Frontline), Navai secretly filmed inside a Taliban prison, winning an Emmy award, a Royal Television Society Presenter of the Year award,[19] a Grierson, a DuPont-Colombia silver Baton, a Rose d’Or and an Overseas Press Club of America Award.[citations needed]

Navai presented the findings of her documentary The UN Sex Abuse Scandal (Channel 4/Frontline) to MEPs in the European Parliament.[20]

Her work has been used by human rights groups, such as Amnesty International,[21] and in government reports. She has taken part in several UK parliamentary briefings.[22]

She has written for many publications, including The Sunday Times, The Guardian, The Independent, the New Statesman, and The Irish Times.

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Author

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City of Lies: Love, Sex, Death and the Search for Truth in Tehran

City of Lies: Love, Sex, Death and the Search for Truth in Tehran was published in the UK by Weidenfeld and Nicolson in May 2014 and in the US by PublicAffairs in September 2014. It has been translated into several languages. City of Lies won Debut Political Book of the Year Award at the Political Book Awards[23] as well as the Royal Society of Literature's Jerwood Award.[24] It was a Book of the Year in both the Evening Standard (2014)[25] and The Spectator.[26]

Reception

Nick Hornby: “Navai’s gripping, heartbreaking book …City of Lies is an extraordinary piece of work about an extraordinary society.”[27]

Richard Osman:

Named City of Lies as one of his favourite books,[28] saying it was a beautiful book[29] that made him cry and changed his thinking.[30]

Anthony Loyd:

One of the world’s most exciting cities, as revealed by one of journalism’s most exciting women. Navai slips effortlessly into the boots of earthy, urban writer to tour Tehran’s ripped backsides in this intimate, grand guignol debut. She transports us through the Iranian capital’s multiple personas with deft and knowing navigation: never short of love for even the lowliest of her fellow Tehranis. An intimate and devoted portrait, lifting a beautiful truth from a city masked in lies.[31]

Eliza Griswold, The Sunday Telegraph: Navai’s prose is startling ... Navai’s characters observe the wrecked beauty of the world around them. Through these observations, the book is elevated far above typical reportage.[32]

Jon Stewart, The Daily Show:

The stories are beautiful, and they’re so well-detailed and nuanced.[33]

Shifting Sands: The Unravelling of the Old Order in the Middle East

Navai wrote: “Iran Coming out from the Cold?” in this collection of essays written by academics and writers, including Avi Shlaim, James Barr, Khaled Fahmy and Selma Dabbagh and edited by Raja Shehadeh and Penny Johnson. Published by Profile Books.[34]

Reception

Ian Birrell wrote in the Guardian: “The journalist Ramita Navai delivers a strong analysis of the tensions bubbling away in Iran and asks whether the emerging alliance between Tehran and Washington can ever be more than a temporary tactical union."[35]

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Work & Awards

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Year Work Awards
2024 Israel’s Second Front

Frontline, PBS

2024/2023 Afghanistan Undercover

Frontline, PBS

Winner: Emmy Award for Outstanding Investigation[36]

Winner: duPont-Columbia Silver Baton[37]

Winner: The Overseas Press Club of America David A. Andelman and Pamela Title Award[38]

Nomination: Emmy Award for Outstanding Research

2023 Afghanistan: No Country for Women

Exposure, ITV[39]

Winner: The Grierson Award for Best Current Affairs Documentary[40]

Winner: Rose d’Or Award for News and Current Affairs[41]

Winner: Royal Television Society Presenter of the Year[42]

Winner: Edinburgh TV Festival Best TV Presenter – Factual[43]

Nomination: BAFTA for Current Affairs Documentary

Nomination: Rory Peck Impact Award for Current Affairs

Nomination: British Journalism Award for Foreign Affairs Journalism

Nomination: Broadcast Award for Best News / Current Affairs Programme

Nomination: Royal Society of Television Journalism Award for International Current Affairs

2022 No Country for Women

Exposure, ITV

India’s Rape Scandal

Dispatches, Channel 4

Iraq’s Assassins

Frontline, PBS/BBC

Winner: Women in Film and TV award for outstanding achievement in News and Current Affairs[44]
2022 Afghanistan Undercover

Frontline, PBS

Winner: Gracie Award, Best Documentary - International Investigation[45]
2021 India’s Rape Scandal

Dispatches, Channel 4[46]

Frontline, PBS[47]

Nomination: Rose d’Or Award for News and Current Affairs
2021 Iraq’s Assassins[48]

Frontline, PBS/BBC

2019/2018 The UN Sex Abuse Scandal

Frontline, PBS

Dispatches, Channel 4

ARTE

Winner: The Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for International Television[49]

Winner: Kindernothilfe Children’s Rights Media Award

Nomination: Emmy Award for Outstanding Investigation

2018 Iraq Uncovered

Frontline, PBS

Winner: The Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for International Television[50]

Nomination: Emmy Award for Outstanding Investigation

Nomination: Emmy Award for Outstanding Research

2017 ISIS and the Battle for Iraq

Dispatches, Channel 4

Winner: British Journalism Award for Foreign Affairs Journalism[51]

Winner: The Frontline Club Broadcast Journalism Award

Nomination: Rory Peck Impact Award for Current Affairs

Nomination: One World Media Award for Television Documentary

2016 Macedonia: Tracking Down the Refugee Kidnap Gangs

Channel 4 News

Winner: Foreign Press Association Award for TV News Story of the Year

Winner: Royal Television Society Independent Journalism Award

Nomination: Amnesty Media Award for TV News

Nomination: Rory Peck News Feature Award

2015 City of Lies: Love, Sex, Death and the Search for Truth in Tehran

Weidenfeld & Nicolson

Debut Political Book of the Year Award, Political Book Awards[52]
2013 Egypt: Sex, Mobs & Revolution

Unreported World, Channel 4

Nomination: Foreign Press Association TV News Story of the Year

Nomination: One World Media Television Award

2012 City of Lies: Love, Sex, Death and the Search for Truth in Tehran

Weidenfeld & Nicolson

Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Award[53]
2012 Honduras and Mexico: The Lost Girls

Unreported World, Channel 4

2012/2011 Undercover Syria

Frontline, PBS

Unreported World, Channel 4

Winner: Emmy Award, Outstanding Coverage of a Breaking News Story

Nomination: One World Media Television Award

Nomination: Rory Peck Impact Award for Current Affairs

2011 Breaking into Israel

Unreported World, Channel 4

Nominated: French-American Foundation Immigration Journalism Award
2011 Burundi: Boys Behind Bars

Unreported World, Channel 4

2010 Zimbabwe's Blood Diamonds

Unreported World, Channel 4

2010 Afghanistan's Child Drug Addicts

Unreported World, Channel 4

2010 El Salvador: The Child Assassins

Unreported World, Channel 4

2010 USA: Down and Out

Unreported World, Channel 4

2009 Sudan: How to Fuel a Famine

Unreported World, Channel 4

2009 Peru: Blood and Oil

Unreported World, Channel 4

2009 Papua New Guinea: Bush Knives and Black Magic

Unreported World, Channel 4

2009 Turkey: Killing for Honour

Unreported World, Channel 4

2008 South Africa: Body Parts for Sale

Unreported World, Channel 4

Nominated: Amnesty Media Gaby Rado Young Human Rights Journalist
2008 India's Trafficked Girls

Channel 4 News

Nominated: Amnesty Media Gaby Rado Young Human Rights Journalist

Nominated: One World Media: Children's Rights Award

2008 Brazil: Murder in Sao Paolo

Channel 4 News

Nomination: Amnesty Media Gaby Rado Young Human Rights Journalist
2008 Argentina: The Drug Paco in Buenos Aires

Channel 4 News / More 4 News

2008 Paraguay Elections

Channel 4 News / More 4 News

2008 Ecuador: Laron Syndrome and the Secret to Long Life

Channel 4 News

2008 Nigeria: Child Brides, Stolen Lives

Unreported World, Channel 4

2008 Bangladesh: The Drowning Country

Unreported World, Channel 4

2007 India: The Broken People

Unreported World, Channel 4

2007 China: Chongqing: Invisible city

Unreported World, Channel 4

2006

Unreported World, Channel 4

2006 Malaysia: Asia's Slaves

Unreported World, Channel 4

2003 Postgraduate film on transgender legislation in the UK Winner: BJTC Young Journalist of the Year Award
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Books

  • City of Lies: Love, Sex, Death and the Search for Truth in Tehran. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2014, ISBN 978-1-610-39519-9.
  • "Iran: Coming out from the Cold?" In Shifting Sands: The Unravelling of the Old Order in the Middle East, edited by Raja Shehadeh and Penny Johnson, 113–127. London: Profile Books.
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See also

References

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