Two Nepali journalists have won the second prize in the prestigious Fetisov Journalism Awards.

Roshan Sedhai and Samik Kharel won the prize for their story “Nepalis Feel the Human Toll of Qatar’s World Cup,” which highlights the abuse and exploitation of workers involved in building stadiums for the FIFA World Cup 2022 held in Qatar. The story was published in The Diplomat in November 2022.

The award has an annual prize fund of 520,000 Swiss francs given across four categories–Outstanding Contribution to Peace; Contribution to Civil Rights; Outstanding Investigative Reporting; and Excellence in Environmental Journalism.

The story by the two former Kathmandu Post journalists–Sedhai and Kharel–was awarded the second prize in the Contributions to Civil Rights category.

The first prize in the category was awarded to Anna-Catherine Brigida (United States) for the story “How Surveillance Tech Helped Protect Power — and the Drug Trade — in Honduras”, while the third prize went to a group of Venezuelan journalists for “Series: Torture is the Neighbor”. The winners were announced at a function in Istanbul, Turkey on Tuesday.

The awards were launched five years ago by billionaire philanthropist and businessman Gleb Fetisov and offer the world’s largest prize in journalism, said the organisers.

Three winners in each of the four categories receive a first prize of 100,000 Swiss francs, a second prize of 20,000 Swiss francs, and a third prize of 10,000 Swiss francs.

According to the organisers, about 400 entries from 96 countries were submitted to the competition.