about suddaf

Suddaf Chaudry is an Emmy and Peabody award-winning investigative journalist and producer.

Broadcast Suddaf has worked as an investigative producer for the Aljazeera Investigative Unit, utilising a considerable source base to deliver on several projects. Most recently, she produced a podcast on sexual misconduct at universities from Glasgow to Pakistan, she investigated for 6 months a professor in Pakistan’s conservative tribal belt, to unearth an extraordinary story. Her time with the unit has led to significant undercover work from Albania to the Middle East and South Asia. She is currently working with the unit in Afghanistan as a Senior Producer on a film that she pitched.

Suddaf recently covered the fall of the Ghani regime in Afghanistan, she was amongst a handful of journalists who remained for six months to cover the fall of the country. She produced a documentary for Channel 4’s Dispatches. She won an Emmy with VICE she produced a documentary on the journey for justice for women in the Taliban-controlled country. Her work in Afghanistan was broadcast on television and radio on BBC, CNN, Channel 4 and much more, notably, Suddaf was the first journalist to report on the Daesh threat to the Afghan capital. Her on-the-ground reportage provided viewers with live coverage of the Taliban takeover and documented the historical moment of Western troop withdrawal in Afghanistan after twenty years. 

She has reported on the Kashmir conflict for Deutsche Welle, provided major coverage and live on the ground reporting from both sides of the Line of Control. 

She produced and directed a Media & Censorship program for the Aljazeera Listening Post on the intelligence agencies curbing the Pakistani media which was a viral segment. Her field reporting in Pakistan has led her to be a panellist on Af-Pak discussions at Chatham House. 

Suddaf was featured in the renowned Cambridge Union debate alongside Peter Frankopan, Peter Tatchell and Rowan Williams. She discussed the coronavirus and its impact on humanity, the challenges ahead regarding the overlap of two global disruptions—the epidemiological and the technological- and how this will shape the next few years of global history-making truth to power even more challenging for us all.

Through her various embeds across the globe, she has broken stories through covert investigations and is committed to breaking new ground via an extensive source base in South Asia and the Middle East. From Israeli jets landing in Islamabad to election rigging to pellet gun violations in Kashmir to the black market of documentation in Syria. Suddaf is able to present editorially complex situations into successful news stories.

Her journalistic and documentary skills in conjunction with an exceptional multimedia toolkit have given audiences an imaginative and informative visual narrative. Suddaf is passionate about environmental concerns she independently launched a #loomingwatercrisis project in Pakistan, She independently held an event to cover the water crisis in South Asia with the application of digital mapping and hackathon which consequently gave audiences an immersive solution-based experience on the issue. 

Suddaf constantly looks to develop new techniques to tell stories of the political paradigm to human interest narrative in often complicated terrains with her training from Google news labs and the Centre for Investigative Journalism.

Suddaf is a member of Frontline Freelance Register has carried out hostile environment training and adheres firmly to the ACOS Alliance principles of freelance journalist safety and ethical news-gathering. Also, a board member of the ACOS Alliance Industry Standards for Safety Training.

Her words have been  published in CNN International, CNN, CNN en Español, The Independent, Broadly, VICE, Al Jazeera, Firstpost, New Statesman, Asia Times, openDemocracy, Middle East Eye, New Internationalist, The Arab Weekly, The Caravan, The Telegraph

Print:  A particular focus for Suddaf has been the relationship between the Middle East and South Asia, the warring factions of Iran, Saudi Arabia, India and Pakistan. 

She works alone; often undercover and in closed and difficult countries. As a freelancer, Suddaf took great risks to report on a number of investigations, including the recruitment of Pakistan Shia militias by Iran to fight in Syria. The Baloch militias going to fight in Iraq under the instruction of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard was a very challenging investigation due to military control and zero access for reporters in Balochistan and Tehran. 

Suddaf wrote for The Telegraph in Afghanistan, she documented the challenging future for women under the Islamic Emirate, to the American drone strike in Kabul. Her articles presented the volatility of the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan.

For Middle East Eye Suddaf covered the dark underbelly of petrol and child smuggling on the border region between Iran and Pakistan, she investigated the criminal infrastructure of diesel and drug smuggling, which was connected to the illegal network of child smuggling between the two countries. 

Suddaf has focused on the deepening ties between Saudi-Pak relations since the election win of Imran Khan. Her coverage has covered the political snubs, economic reliance and the Pakistani tilt towards Iran consequently how these pivots will ignite or disrupt stability in the future. 

The Kashmir conflict is very important to Suddaf,  she went undercover to report on human rights violations in Srinagar. Her notable reportage in South Asia has been to bring under-reported voices to the forefront to a mass audience. From the issue of child abuse in a conservative province in Pakistan which became a scandal, she documented for VICE the vulnerability and the fragility of the legal parameters in Pakistan. 

In regards to Syria Suddaf wrote a feature on the black market of the Syrian Justice System, covering the illegal route of documentation from Istanbul via Beirut to Damascus. This narrative focused on Syrians reclaiming their assets in ISIS-held territory and military courts. In Libya, Suddaf reported on the development of the Telecoms industry in ISIS-held territory. 

She is a mentor at Second Source to female journalists who are new to the field of journalism.