Fury as photo of Hamas victim Shani Louk’s naked and mutilated body being paraded by terrorists wins top award
- Photo agency AP won the world’s oldest photojournalism award for its photo of Shani Louk’s dead body on the morning of the October 7 attack
- The agency has denied claims that its photographers worked with Hamas to take the winning photos
- Friends of the 22-year-old say she should be remembered as she was when she was alive
A prestigious university has been branded a ‘disgrace’ after awarding the world’s oldest photojournalism award for a photo of a mutilated and murdered victim on October 7.
Shani Louk, 22, became a symbol of the brutal Hamas attack after the world saw the photo of armed men carrying her half-naked corpse back to Gaza in the back of a pickup truck.
That photo was the centerpiece of the entry that won the AP photo agency the Team Picture Story of the Year category from the Missouri School of Journalism’s Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute.
“RJI thinks gruesome photo of Shani Louk’s half-dressed, dead body is an award-winning work,” GOP House whip Tom Emmer tweeted.
‘Awful.’
The winning AP photo of Shani Louk’s lifeless body being carried back to Gaza by her killers
Friends and family of the 22-year-old said she should be remembered for who she was
The German-Israeli was present at the SuperNova Festival with her boyfriend Orion Radoux
The 22-year-old German-Israeli was one of the 364 people killed at the SuperNova Festival, which she attended with her boyfriend.
Family photos of the young woman showed a happy and carefree spirit at the start of her adult life and friends of her family have said that is how she should be remembered.
“This is how we choose to remember the beautiful Shani Louk,” wrote one. “We will not allow her memory to be trampled by the inhuman criminals who celebrate the AP photo of her tragic murder.”
“I’m shocked,” wrote another. ‘This is a photo of terrorists parading the corpse of a Jewish woman after killing her. You should be ashamed.’
Louk’s family and other victims of the SuperNova killings sued AP and fellow news agency Reuters in February, accusing them of conspiracy in the atrocities they documented.
They claim that the agency’s freelancers were “longtime Hamas affiliates and full participants in the terrorist attack” who knew it was about to take place.
Lobby group HonestReporting, which raised concerns about the reporting, posted its “congratulations” to AP for winning the award.
“How does it feel to do this on the backs of Palestinian photojournalists who infiltrated Israel on October 7 and took photos like the one below, of Shani Louk’s dead body in a Hamas pickup truck?” they demanded.
“Did RJI worry about that before presenting the award?”
The sentiment was echoed by Israeli MP and diplomat Danny Danon, who tweeted: ‘This photo shows Hamas terrorists desecrating the body of Shani Louk, may her soul rest in peace.
‘Yet the AP news agency proudly received an award for it. Their continued pride in the ‘work’ of their photographers and their involvement in the atrocities is shameful.’
Senior politicians from around the world joined the chorus of protests against the award
The young tattoo artist was one of the 364 people who died during the SuperNova Festival
The festival site in the Negev Desert was just five kilometers from the Gaza border and was overrun within minutes of the October 7 attack.
Parts of Louk’s skull were later found at the entrance to the festival site
According to Reporters Without Borders, more than just journalists have been killed in Israeli airstrikes since the ground invasion of Gaza began, making the conflict one of the deadliest on record for news gatherers.
Louk’s photo, taken by AP freelancer Ali Mahmud, was the first in a group of 20 submitted by the agency for the competition.
Both AP and Reuters have denied any collusion in the attacks, and AP issued a statement last month saying it has “the deepest sympathy for those affected” but insisting the allegations are “unfounded.”
“AP had no prior knowledge of the October 7 attacks, nor have we seen any evidence — including in the lawsuit — that the freelance journalists who contributed to our reporting did,” they wrote.
“These types of allegations are reckless and create even more potential danger to journalists in the region.
‘Documenting major news events around the world – no matter how horrific – is our job.
“Without AP and other news organizations, the world would not have known what happened on October 7.”