Riveting coverage of the Belarus protests, and a far-removed but equally powerful photo essay on the Ganges River share AP’s weekly honors.
Much of the AP’s work across the world focuses on breaking news, like the gripping coverage of Belarus’ largest protests in decades, shaking the power of the man often styled as Europe’s last dictator.
And then there are times when journalists devote months to a single project close to their heart. Such was the case with Altaf Qadri’s unforgettable photo package that documented life along India’s eternal Ganges River.
This week, AP recognizes these two very different bodies of work for their distinctive, outstanding coverage, sharing Best of the Week honors.
An all-formats team in Minsk, Belarus, for the second consecutive week delivered exclusive coverage that called into question the government’s narrative of what was happening around the country’s disputed elections and the popular red-and-white revolt against Alexander Lukashenko’s authoritarian rule.
Germany-based AP video journalist Mstyslav Chernov, a veteran of many conflicts, was covering a second night of chaotic street protests in Minsk after Lukashenko's declared election win when he heard a commotion and turned his camera toward a man standing in the street with blood on his shirt.
With armed security forces at right, wounded protester Alexander Taraikovsky, left, staggers before collapsing in the street in Minsk, Belarus, Aug. 10, 2020, in a still image from AP video. Taraikovsky died of his wounds.
AP Image from video / Mstyslav Chernov
People carry the coffin of Alexander Taraikovsky in Minsk, Belarus, Saturday, Aug. 15, 2020. Taraikovsky died Aug. 10 amid clashes protesting the results of the recent presidential election, in which authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko, in power since 1994, won a sixth term in office.
AP Photo / Sergei Grits
People wave flowers during the funeral of Alexander Taraikovsky in Minsk, Belarus, Aug. 15, 2020. Taraikovsky died Aug. 10 as demonstrators roiled the streets of the capital, denouncing election results showing that authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko, in power since 1994, had won a sixth term in office.
AP Photo / Sergei Grits
People hold an old Belarusian national flag and gather at the place where Alexander Taraikovsky died amid the clashes protesting the results of the recent presidential election, during Taraikovsky’s civil funeral in Minsk, Belarus, Saturday, Aug. 15, 2020.
AP Photo / Dmitri Lovetsky
People hold old Belarusian national flags at the place where Alexander Taraikovsky died, during his civil funeral in Minsk, Belarus, Saturday, Aug. 15, 2020.
AP Photo / Dmitri Lovetsky
People lay flowers as they gather at the place where protester Alexander Taraikovsky died on Aug. 10, during his civil funeral in Minsk, Belarus, Aug. 15, 2020. Thousands of demonstrators have gathered at the spot during protests calling for authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko to resign.
AP Photo / Dmitri Lovetsky
A man holds an old Belarusian national flag with a black ribbon at the place where protester Alexander Taraikovsky died, during his civil funeral in Minsk, Belarus, Aug. 15, 2020. Taraikovsky died Aug. 10 during protests against authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko.
AP Photo / Dmitri Lovetsky
A line of heavily armed police stood nearby. Chernov, who himself had spent part of the previous night in a hospital after being beaten by police, zoomed in on the scene and captured the moment that the man hunched over and collapsed to the ground.
The man’s identity at first was unknown, and it was unclear if he was the same person mentioned in a subsequent government statement that said a protester had died after an explosive he was holding accidentally went off in his hand.
With so many questions unanswered and the sensitivity of the video, Chernov and the AP teams in Belarus and Moscow spent several days trying to track down the man's identity. Eventually, they located a grief-stricken woman, Elena German, who confirmed the AP video was of the death of her partner, Alexander Taraikovsky, an auto mechanic. She agreed to talk exclusively with the AP and then allowed AP to record his funeral. As the coffin was carried out, some among the 500 mourners dropped to one knee, weeping and exclaiming, “Long live Belarus!”
The story ran Saturday with text from reporter Yuras Karmanau and photos by Sergei Grits and Dmitri Lovetsky covering the funeral and memorial respectively. Non-subscribers in Belarus and elsewhere called the AP asking for us to license the footage of the fatal confrontation. Less than two days later, the government reversed course and said the man may have died from a rubber bullet and not from an explosive.
A woman holds an old Belarusian national flag as she marches in the center of Minsk, Belarus, Aug. 14, 2020. Thousands of people have flooded the center of the Belarus capital in a show of anger over a police crackdown on protests following a disputed presidential election.
AP Photo / Sergei Grits
People watch as Belarusian opposition supporters rally in the center of Minsk, Belarus, Aug. 16, 2020. Protests began late on Aug. 9 at the close of disputed presidential elections.
AP Photo / Dmitri Lovetsky
People wave flowers as they gather to protest against the results of the country’s presidential election in Minsk, Belarus, Aug. 13, 2020. Crowds of protesters swarmed the streets and thousands of workers rallied outside industrial plants in Belarus to denounce a police crackdown on demonstrations over a disputed election that extended the 26-year rule of authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko.
AP Photo / Sergei Grits
Opposition supporters wave an old Belarusian national flag as they rally in the center of Minsk, Belarus, Aug. 16, 2020, a week after the nation’s disputed presidential election.
AP Photo / Sergei Grits
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko gestures as he greets his supporters gathered at Independent Square of Minsk, Belarus, Aug. 16, 2020. Thousands of people gathered in support of Lukashenko, while opposition supporters had convulsed the country for a week since the disputed presidential election.
AP Photo / Dmitri Lovetsky
President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus wipes his face as he addresses supporters gathered at Independent Square of Minsk, Belarus, Aug. 16, 2020.
AP Photo / Dmitri Lovetsky
A woman scuffles with a police officer as other police detain a protester in the capital, Minsk, Belarus, Aug. 11, 2020. Demonstrators swarmed the streets after the Aug. 9 election in which officials reported that President Alexander Lukashenko won 80% of the vote to win a sixth term in office.
AP Photo
In an exaggerated show of goodwill, a woman embraces a soldier guarding the Belarusian government building in Minsk, Belarus, Aug. 14, 2020.
AP Photo / Sergei Grits
During a rally in Minsk, Belarus, Aug. 15, 2020, a woman cries while holding a photo of a hospitalized protester, reportedly beaten by police.
AP Photo / Dmitri Lovetsky
Meanwhile, the protests in Minsk and elsewhere in Belarus continued to grow and the AP team provided extensive coverage, often ahead of competitors. Despite rolling internet outages, Chernov and Moscow-based camera operator Dimitri Kozlov shot exclusive live footage of women holding flowers and photos of loved ones who had been detained and live coverage of a memorial for Taraikovsky in which thousands turned out at the spot where he died. On Saturday, the team also produced a powerful look at police brutality, interviewing detainees who had been beaten while in custody and showing their injuries as well as frightened relatives who had police storm their homes.
The AP team and other media faced constant police intimidation. In addition to the beating of Chernov on the night of the election, police broke part of Grits’ camera two days later and took his memory cards. Nevertheless, the AP’s text, photos and video flowed throughout the week and were widely used, with many customers crediting the AP for exclusive content.
Indian Hindu pilgrims walk on a pontoon bridge before dawn at Sangam, the confluence of rivers Ganges, Yamuna, and mythical Saraswati during Magh Mela, a festival that attracts millions of pilgrims every year, in Prayagraj, in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, Jan. 30, 2020. In the run-up to the bathing festivals, extra water is released upstream and tanneries are temporarily closed to temporarily clean up the waters of the Ganges. But pollution officials say that it is unsafe to bathe in the Ganges anywhere near Prayagraj. To Hindus, however, the river remains pure in a religious sense.
AP Photo / Altaf Qadri
In work of a different dimension entirely, New Delhi photographer Altaf Qadri spent many months tracing life along the 1,700-mile River Ganges, considered sacred by almost 1 billion Hindus in India.
The project began more than year ago, when Qadri’s editor solicited ideas for photo essays. At the top of Qadri’s list: a photo documentary that chronicled the various aspects of the Ganges. Starting with a treacherous two-day hike to glaciers at the foot of the Himalayas and ending in the fast disappearing mangrove forests of the Sundarbans, Qadri captured a breathtaking range along his odyssey: celebration and death, solitude and fellowship, daily life and holy rites. He researched each of the locations he visited, maximizing his ability to capture each of the elements he’d identified early on as critical.
The Ganges is far more than just a river: It is religion, industry, economy, farming and politics. It is a source of water for millions of people, and an immense septic system that is among the most polluted waterways in the world.
The Ganges is central to Hindu living, so much so that festivals take place around it. Devout Hindus brave the harshness of weather conditions and seem oblivious to the pollution to take holy dips in the river at least once in their lifetime, believing that this act will rid them of their sins.
Hindu women walk on silt, deposited by monsoon floods, along the banks of the River Ganges as they perform daily morning rituals in Varanasi, one of the Hinduism’s holiest cities, in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, Oct. 18, 2019.
AP Photo / Altaf Qadri
Mouni Baba, a Hindu holy man, fetches water from a stream at an altitude of 4500 meters (14,800 feet) at the foot of Mount Shivling in Tapovan, in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand, May 10, 2019. Mouni Baba, on a silent vow, has been meditating in Tapovan for years, even during the long months when winter makes the place inaccessible. Tapovan is located just above Gangotri glacier, one of the primary sources of water for the River Ganges.
AP Photo / Altaf Qadri
A Hindu holy man meditates near Gaumukh, part of the Gangotri Glacier, at an altitude of 4000 meters (13,100 feet) in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand, May 11, 2019. Over the past 40-some years, the Gangotri Glacier – source of almost half the River Ganges’ water – has been receding at an increasingly frightening pace, now losing about 22 meters (24 yards) per year.
AP Photo / Altaf Qadri
Tourist guide Suresh Panwar navigates icy rocks as he descends a steep mountain ridge at an altitude of 4500 meters (14,800 feet) amid the Bhagirathi peaks and the huge expanse of the Gangotri Glacier in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand, May 11, 2019. The glacier – one of the primary sources of water for the River Ganges – has provided enough water to the arid plains it flows through, even during the driest months, but data shows that the Gangotri is receding at a frightening pace.
AP Photo / Altaf Qadri
School girls walk along a road overlooking Tehri Dam in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand, May 13, 2019. The dam on the Bhagirathi river is India’s highest dam and supplies power and water to numerous Indian towns and cities. The Bhagirathi is one of the two sources that form the River Ganges, the other being the river Alaknanda.
AP Photo / Altaf Qadri
The confluence of the Alaknanda and Bhagirathi rivers, officially accepted as the start of the River Ganges, reflects the lights of the town of Devprayag, in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand, May 13, 2019. To Hindus, the Ganges is “Ganga Ma,” or Mother Ganges, and millions of Hindus make pilgrimages to the temples and shrines along its shores every year. To drink from it is auspicious. For many Hindus, life is incomplete without bathing in it at least once in their lifetime, washing away their sins.
AP Photo / Altaf Qadri
Hindu devotees prepare to immerse an idol of goddess Durga in the river Hooghly, a branch of the River Ganges, in Kolkata in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal, Oct. 9, 2019. Hundreds of thousands of idols are immersed into the Ganges and other rivers across the country during the Durga Puja festival, causing serious concerns of environmental pollution.
AP Photo / Altaf Qadri
Devotees take ritual dips alongside elephants at the confluence of the Ganges and Gandak rivers to mark the beginning of the centuries old Sonpur Mela, the largest cattle fair in Asia, in the Indian state of Bihar, Nov. 12, 2019. Sonpur was once a place along the Ganges where powerful beasts like elephants were traded in large numbers. The number of elephants seen at the fair reduced drastically after the Wildlife Protection Act banned their sale. Only a handful are now brought by the administration to the festival in order to keep the Hindu tradition alive and also to add value to the fair as a tourist attraction.
AP Photo / Altaf Qadri
A worker who helps cremate bodies sits by the body of an elderly man, wrapped and weighed down by a large rock, before throwing the body into the River Ganges as per the man’s final wish, on the banks of the Ganges in Varanasi, India, Oct. 18, 2019.
AP Photo / Altaf Qadri
Hindu mourners wait for the cremation of their loved ones at the flooded Manikarnika Ghat, one of the oldest and most sacred places for Hindus to be cremated, on the banks of River Ganges in Varanasi, India, Oct. 22, 2019. When the mighty Ganges overflows following heavy monsoon rains, large parts of the Hindu holy town of Varanasi are submerged by floodwaters, forcing thousands of cremations to happen on rooftops and narrow alleyways. For millions of Hindus, Varanasi is a place of pilgrimage and anyone who dies in the city or is cremated on its ghats is believed to attain salvation, freeing them from the cycle of birth and death.
AP Photo / Altaf Qadri
An elderly Hindu woman sits in solitude inside an ashram meant for those who come to die and attain salvation in Varanasi, one of Hinduism's holiest cities on the banks of river Ganges, in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, Oct. 18, 2019.
AP Photo / Altaf Qadri
People wait for their turn to cremate a body as piles of logs arrive on boats at Manikarnika Ghat, one of the oldest and most sacred place for Hindus to be cremated, on the banks of river Ganges in Varanasi, India, Oct. 18, 2019.
AP Photo / Altaf Qadri
People prepare to cremate the body of a Hindu woman on the banks of the River Ganges on the outskirts of Varanasi, India, one of the Hinduism’s holiest cities, Oct. 17, 2019.
AP Photo / Altaf Qadri
Funeral pyres burn at Manikarnika Ghat, one of the oldest and most sacred places for Hindus to be cremated, on the banks of River Ganges in Varanasi, India, Oct. 18, 2019.
AP Photo / Altaf Qadri
A Hindu pilgrim takes a holy dip during the Makar Sankranti festival on Sagar Island, an island in the Ganges delta, in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal, Jan. 15, 2020.
AP Photo / Altaf Qadri
With the landmark Howrah Bridge in the background, people wash utensils, brush their teeth and bathe in the polluted waters of the river Hooghly, known as “Ganga” by locals, a branch of the River Ganges in Kolkata in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal, October 11, 2019. Once the capital of the British raj, Kolkata is today a seething metropolis, home to nearly 15 million people.
AP Photo / Altaf Qadri
Women wash their household items by a drainage ditch flowing into the River Ganges in Varanasi, one of the Hinduism's holiest cities, in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, Oct. 18, 2019.
AP Photo / Altaf Qadri
Smoke rises from chimneys of leather tanneries in Kanpur, India, an industrial city on the banks of the River Ganges, Tuesday, June 23, 2020. Kanpur produces an estimated 450 million liters (120 million gallons) of municipal sewage and industrial effluent daily, much of which flowed directly into the Ganges until recently. Today that number is lower, although it’s not clear by how much, after a Ganges cleanup project closed some drains and diverted industrial pollution to treatment plants.
AP Photo / Altaf Qadri
An Indian worker drinks water as processed rawhide dries at a tannery in Kanpur, an industrial city on the banks of the River Ganges known for its leather tanneries and extensive pollution, in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, India, June 24, 2020.
AP Photo / Altaf Qadri
Chemical foam caused by industrial and domestic pollution floats toward a figurine stuck in the shallow waters of Yamuna River in New Delhi, India, Oct. 8, 2019. Despite the river being accorded the status of a living human entity by an Indian court, untreated sewage and industrial pollutants have turned it into one of the most polluted rivers in the world. The river Yamuna is one of the major tributaries of the River Ganges.
AP Photo / Altaf Qadri
A fisherman passes a floating hotel on the river Hooghly, a branch of the River Ganges, in Kolkata, in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal, Oct. 11, 2019.
AP Photo / Altaf Qadri
An Indian Hindu family walks on the shallow banks of the Yamuna River past chemical foam caused by industrial and domestic pollution, during Chhath Puja festival in New Delhi, India, Nov. 2, 2019. Despite the river being accorded the status of a living human entity by an Indian court, untreated sewage and industrial pollutants have turned it into one of the most polluted rivers in the world. The Yamuna is one of the major tributaries of the Ganges.
AP Photo / Altaf Qadri
A Hindu pilgrim is stranded on a mobile toilet after high tide submerged a camping area for pilgrims on the eve of Makar Sankranti festival on Sagar Island, an island lying in India’s Ganges delta, Jan. 13, 2020. Sagar and many other small islands are part of the Sundarbans, the world's largest mangrove forest, which has seen a dramatic rise in sea levels due to climate change. The highest point in the Sundarbans is about 3 meters (10 feet) above sea level, and the mean elevation is less than 1 meter above sea level.
AP Photo / Altaf Qadri
Hindu pilgrims spend the night huddled together after being forced by high tide to flee from their camps on the eve of the Makar Sankranti festival on Sagar Island, an island in the Ganges delta, in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal, Jan. 14, 2020.
AP Photo / Altaf Qadri
For more than 1,700 miles, stretching from the Gangotri Glacier in the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal, the Ganges flows across the plains like a timeline of India's past, nourishing an extraordinary wealth of life. It has seen empires rise and fall. It has seen too many wars, countless kings, British colonials, independence and the rise of Hindu nationalism as a political movement.
AP Photo / Altaf Qadri
Because the river is also controlled by the weather, Altaf had to plan concisely so that no trip was wasted. He had to trek to Gangotri glacier before the ice melted. He had to capture much of the river before the tempest that comes with the monsoon rain. He shot video, took audio and wrote the text. The video complemented the photos. As one judge commented, when we look back at the AP’s best work of 2020, Qadri’s will certainly figure prominently.
For extraordinary work in enterprise and spot news journalism, Qadri and the Belarus team of Chernov, Grits, Karmanau, Kozlov and Lovetsky share AP’s Best of the Week award.
