| 2000
World Press Freedom Review Events in Kashmir cast a long and terrible shadow over press freedom in India this year. The ongoing border dispute between India and Pakistan, after lying dormant, exploded back into life on the 12-month anniversary of the skirmishes between the two countries in 1999. Four journalists were murdered in the first year of the new millennium, two of them as a direct result of the separatist movements in Kashmir and Manipur, a third appeared to have been targeted for his reporting activities, while police have yet to discover the reason for the murder of the fourth journalist. Problems in Kashmir also appeared to have a knock-on effect in other parts of India with regional authorities displaying undue sensitivity to articles written by the media. There were also a number of disturbing attacks on journalists by groups affiliated to political parties. In February, Reuters reported that Hindu nationalists in Calcutta had threatened to organise public protests and to burn effigies of Indian director Deepa Mehta, if she carried through with her decision to shoot a controversial film in the city about child widows. The intended film by Mehta, entitled "Water", has met with a storm of criticism. One of the main objections is the claim made by the film makers that up to the 1930’s, several child widows in Varanasi were forced to become prostitutes. On 10 March, the Punjab authorities withdrew the accreditation of journalist Sukhbir Singh Osan. The journalist works for a number of different newspapers in India and maintains his own website, which comments on news from the Sikh community. As a result of the withdrawal of his accreditation, Singh Osan was prohibited from accessing official information and he alleged that his phone had been tapped. The sanctions were enforced after the report of a police officer accusing the journalist of being a "terrorist". Singh Osan received widespread notoriety for an article published in The Hitavada that exposed corruption involving a former governor of Punjab and the Indian authorities. Since 1994, the journalist has written a number of articles on the subject of corruption and the violation of minority rights for the Sikh community. In a savage attack, Adhir
Rai, district president of the Deoghar Working
Journalists Union, was murdered on 19 March RSF reported on 14 April that Nongthonbam Biren Singh, editor of the daily Naharlogi Thoudang, was arrested by police in Imphal, capital of Manipur state, northeastern India. The editor was accused by police of publishing a speech by an activist, Th Iboyaima, who allegedly "encouraged extremist armed groups". The statements published in the newspaper were considered "seditious and anti-nationalist". Th Iboyaima was also arrested by police. Singh is the fifteenth media worker to be arrested in Manipur state in the last three years. Both Singh and Iboyaima were detained over night and appeared before Judge Gomati Devi, chief justice of Imphal West District, on the following day. The two were charged under sections 121, 121-A, and 124-A of the Indian Penal Code. Section 124-A states that, "Whoever by words, either spoken or written ... attempts to excite disaffection towards the Government may be sentenced to life imprisonment". Referring to the speech made by Iboyaima, delivered on 9 April, Judge Devi said that the speech, "according to the prosecution, gave some sort of encouragement to...underground, unlawful organizations". During another attack on
the broadcast media that highlighted the inflamed
tensions existing in the Kashmir region, on 15 April, a
landmine exploded close On 6 July, Parag Saikia, a journalist at the daily newspaper Aji, was assaulted by a local magistrate in Sibsagar, a town in the eastern province of Assam. According to information gathered by RSF, the journalist had been summoned by the magistrate and reproached for publishing an article on 1 July about the local authorities' alleged involvement in corruption. The magistrate struck Saikia while he was inside the official building. Subsequently, the journalist was taken to hospital suffering from a number of injuries. On 31 July, V. Selvaraj, a journalist with the biweekly newspaper Nakkeeran was shot dead. Within 45 minutes of the murder, eight suspects were caught by police on the road between Perambalur and Chennai. The police were not able to uncover a motive for the brutal murder. However, R. Gopal, editor of the Nakkeeran, said that the murder was "a warning to those who fight to reveal the truth". He also noted that it was a "calculated and cold blooded murder". Although it is unlikely that there is a connection between the two incidents, the murder occurred on the same day as the kidnapping of the film star Dr. Rajkumar by a Tamil bandit called Veerappan. The kidnapping provoked riots in Karnataka state and the offices of four Tamil newspapers were ransacked by crowds in Bangalore, Karnataka State capital. Gopal, who has met Veerappan previously, had been appointed to negotiate the actor's release. Another murder of a journalist took place on 10 August when Pradeep Bhatia, a photo reporter with the daily newspaper the Hindustan Times, was killed in a bomb blast that occurred in the centre of Srinagar, in the Jammu and Kashmir state. In a cruel and premeditated attack, which took advantage of the fact that the media would descend on the scene of an alleged incident, the media went to the state Bank of India after being informed that a group of Kashmiri militants had attacked the building. As they neared the building, a bomb planted under a vehicle exploded near the bank. At least eleven people died in the bombing, including nine soldiers and two civilians. The separatist group Kizbul Mujahidden later claimed responsibility for the attack. In addition to the death of Bhatia, the following journalists were among those seriously injured in the bomb attack, Irfan Manzoor, a Zee TV cameraman, whose right foot had to be amputated; Habibullah Naqash, a photographer for the daily newspaper Asian Age; Fayaz Kabuli, a photographer for Reuters; Bilal Ahmed Butt, a cameraman for Asia News International; Muhammad Amin War, a free-lance photographer and I. Tariq, of the Srinagar News. On the same day as the killing of Pradeep Bhatia, 20 employees of the department of information of the provincial government, based in Calcutta, attacked a group of journalists while they were covering an event inside the administration building. The civil servants, members of a union organisation affiliated to the CPI-M, criticised the journalists for "supporting" the representatives of another labour union. During the attack, at least twelve reporters were attacked and their professional equipment confiscated or damaged. A journalist with the daily The Times of India was hit in the face. Some time after the incident, Deputy Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharya apologised for the incident and stated that an internal inquiry into the incident would be launched. The attack was not the first one on journalists made by the supporters of the CPI-M. On 13 August, CPI-M supporters attacked a group of journalists who were covering the municipal elections in Barrackpore. The journalists had gone to the city because of rumours that a fraud had been committed during vote counting; while in the building where the counting was taking place journalists were attacked by a group of activists. During the incident, cameras were smashed, and police detained three CPI-M activists. The attack was condemned by Chief Minister Basu on the following day. On 20 August, Thounaojam Brajamani Singh, editor of the daily Manipur News, was killed by two unidentified gunmen who had broken into his house. An employee who was with Singh at the time of his murder was unharmed. Since the murder no group has claimed responsibility and police have been unable to establish a motive. Police do believe, though, that the crime is related to Manipur state's rebel separatist group. Prior to his death, Singh had received a number of anonymous death threats. In an editorial published the day before the murder, Brajamani Singh urged the people who had made the threats to either stop or make themselves known. In a violation of article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in a 5 October Order, the University of Calicut effectively banned the daily newspaper Malayala Manorama from the University campus. According to information provided to IPI, the Joint Registrar in Charge of the Registrar made an order, No. Ad. A4/12176/2000, which cancelled the University’s subscription to the Malayala Manorama and directed the University press officer not to send press releases to the newspaper’s offices. Such a ban prevented the newspaper from reporting on all activities at the University, including sports events and exam results. A copy of the order was also sent to the Security Offficer, causing fears that the University authorities were trying to prevent the newspaper’s reporters and sales agents from entering the campus. The reason for the action appeared to lie in a series of articles published by the Malayala Manorama exposing corruption at the University and highlighting the alleged misdeeds of the vice chancellor. The text of the order stated that, "as the Malayala Manorama daily is seen taking an unfavourable attitude in publishing news relating to the University, it has been decided not to subscribe [to] the daily". Concerning religious tolerance, a proposed Religious Bill in the Gujarat state, which was first circulated in 1999, provoked fears that religious values and freedom of expression may be threatened. The proposed Bill prohibits conversion from one religion to another by use of force or allurement or by fraudulent means. Persons contravening the provisions may be punished with a maximum of 3-years’ imprisonment and/or a maximum fine of US $50. Local religious minorities believe that the proposed bill could be easily misused by Hindu fundamentalists to make false accusations and become a way of "legally" harassing religious minorities. A lawyer at Gujarat High Court stated that the proposed bill would violate article 25 of the Indian Constitution that provides for freedom to propagate religion. An announcement by the Indian government in late October stated that after a 45-year ban on foreign investment in newspapers and magazines there will be an in-depth review of the situation. According to Reuters, sources within the government have said that the advent of the Internet has forced a reconsideration of the law. It is likely that the announcement will spark off a lively debate in the Indian media on whether the decision to review the situation was a good idea.
| Back to Asia selection | Back to World selection | 1999 World Press Freedom Review The brutal murder of Shivani Bhatnagar, a correspondent for the English language daily newspaper The Indian Express, exemplifies how India can be a highly dangerous country for journalists. Assailants entered Bhatnagar’s east Delhi apartment on January 23, strangled her with a length of wire and stabbed her in the neck and abdomen. Bhatnagar was at home with her three-month old son, Tanmay, who was not harmed. Shortly before her murder, Bhatnagar had telephoned her husband, Rakesh Bhatnagar, legal editor for the English-language daily Times of India, telling him that two men had stopped by to deliver an invitation to a wedding. Two rooms in the apartment were apparently ransacked, but police believed that robbery was not a motive for the crime. Bhatnagar was a member of the special investigations team at The Indian Express and it is feared that her killers may have been attempting to recover incriminating documents. A year after Bhatnagar’s murder, police were still unable to identify her killers, despite strong pressure from media organisations to bring the perpetrators to justice. At least three other journalists were killed in India this year. Bhatnagar’s murder bore striking similarities to the murder of Anil Rattan, a freelance journalist whose decomposed body was found in his Delhi apartment on March 20. Police said that he had been stabbed and strangled and they estimated that he had died on or around March 18. The police believe Rattan’s relatives had hired an assassin to kill him over a property dispute. The body of a political cartoonist, Irfan Hussain, was found by police off a New Delhi highway on March 13. His body showed signs of extreme torture. Hussain had worked for Outlook, an English-language news magazine. The police announced that they arrested a gang of car thieves in connection with the murder, saying the gang specialised in car-jacking on lonely stretches of road in Delhi and killed drivers who refused to hand over their cars. On October 10, N. A. Lalrohlu, editor of local vernacular newspaper Shan, was shot by suspected militants of separatist movements in Manipur state. The 35-year-old journalists was murdered along with three other people after they were abducted by at least 50 militants. Prior to his death, he had published articles containing criticism of the militia groups. As a protest against the murder, no newspapers in the region appeared for one day. In a controversial case this year, an editor was accused of supporting terrorists. Naresh Kalita, news editor of the vernacular daily Agradoot, was arrested on February 10 on charges of aiding and abetting separatist militants. A police statement said that he was jailed after the confessions of a militant of the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) and that weapons and ammunition were found in his house. On March 4, Kalita was charged under the National Security Act. Many local journalists believe Kalita's arrest was not related to security issues but to an Agradoot article which claimed that police vehicles were being used to transport illegally obtained timber to build the Assamese chief minister's new house. When local journalists gathered outside the Guwahati Press Club on February 15 to protest Kalita's arrest, police detained about fifty protesters on the grounds they had failed to obtain a police permit for the demonstration. The police also arrested and held two other journalists for three days in February. Jitendra Kumar Jain and Anil Mazumdar, respectively managing editor and editor of the Nalbari-based weekly Nisha, were kept in detention after they published a report containing controversial issues critical of the local government. In October, the office of Uqab in Srinigar was bombed. One female staff member was injured. In the same region, Kashmiri militants reportedly threw a grenade at the home of Jeelani Qadri -- editor of the daily newspaper Afaaq -- on November 23. Qadri and his family were not injured in the attack but the home was damaged extensively. The escalating tensions between Pakistan and India over the disputed Kashmir region impacted on media freedom. Over the summer, Indian forces fought guerrillas – believed by India to be comprised mainly of Pakistani soldiers -- in the Kargill heights. Pakistan denied direct involvement but finally agreed to persuade the armed intruders to evacuate the region in July. Media access to the conflict zone was severely restricted by the Indian authorities and journalists were refused access to the Drass, Kargill and Batalik sectors as the conflict intensified. At the height of the military clashes, India banned the distribution of Pakistan Television (PTV) programmes through cable networks throughout India. The Indian minister for Information and Broadcasting, Pramod Mahajan, cited Pakistan’s "vilification campaign against India, especially in connection with the Kargill situation," as justification. The decision to ban the broadcasts apparently followed fifteen days of monitoring the Pakistani broadcasts. Indian media organisations protested against the ban saying there should be a free flow of information and that Indian audiences could distinguish between truth and propaganda. Even before the Kargill conflict, there was a general restriction in Pakistan on accessing Indian television programmes, as the Mullahs claim that the Indian programming could corrupt the minds of the Pakistani people. In a letter to the IFJ, the Pakistani Information Minister Mushahid Hussain claimed that, "those [Indians] listening to Pakistani broadcasts have been told that they can be imprisoned for one month and even fined, according to an order issued by the Indian Police on June 8, 1999 ... The ban is absolutely unjustified and has only one purpose, namely, covering up truth because India knows truth is not on its side. We have decided not to pay back India in the same coin because we believe in free flow of information and freedom of expression." The ban was revoked in October. Certain websites were also apparently blocked during the conflict. The Times of India reported that Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL), India's sole gateway to the Internet, blocked the Dawn website, Pakistan's leading English language daily newspaper. The traditional method still worked, however, as bundles of Indian and Pakistani newspapers were exchanged daily at the Wagah border checkpost near Amritsar. A group of journalists camped in Kargill throughout the conflict, using satellite phones to file their stories and pictures. These journalists had free access to command headquarters in Kargill, Drass and Batalik, from where they could file daily reports. While some journalists such as V. K. Shashikumar of Malayala Manorama and The Week, Gaurav Samant of Indian Express, and Sankarshan Thakur of the Telegraph stayed throughout the conflict, international and Indian TV crews, photographers and news agencies visited frequently. It was a dangerous zone to report from, as testified by Rajesh Ramachandran, a correspondent with the Hindustan Times, who suffered injuries from shelling. Five other journalists narrowly escaped injury in the attack. Those journalists who chose to seek army permission to report from the conflict area found that accreditation was very late in coming, if it came at all. Overall though, Indian media experts felt that journalists had more access during the Kargill conflict than in previous wars India engaged in with Pakistan and China. Pakistan launched surface-to-air missiles at an Indian military helicopters ferrying journalists on August 12 to the site of a Pakistani reconnaissance plane which India had shot down. A CNN reporter, aboard one of the helicopters, said he was told when they returned to the air base at Naliya, India, that pilots saw a flash ''consistent with surface-to-air missiles'' and took evasive action. The debate about foreign investment in Indian media groups continued this year when Mammen Mathew, president of the Indian Newspaper Society, was reported by Reuters as saying that foreign newspapers should not be allowed into the country because they might harm cultural interests. "A newspaper is not a consumer item. Newspapers mould the nation," said Mathew, who is editor of the country’s largest circulated newspaper, the Malayala Manorama. Speaking at the 60th anniversary of the INS in April, Mathew said he didn’t fear that foreign media would deliberately work against the nation but rather he was concerned about cultural castration. A senior official of the information and broadcasting ministry, Y.N. Chaturvedi, said in December that there is a consensus that the policy limiting the role of foreign companies in the newspaper industry needs revision and controls in the industry should be loosened. At the moment, foreign newspapers can be sold but not published in India, under a resolution passed in 1955. The writer Arundhati Roy ignited debate this year on the social implications of the Sardar Sarovar dam project. In her book, "The Greater Common Good", Roy argues against "Big Dam" projects generally, and strongly criticises the authorities for ignoring reports which predict the project will displace half a million people. Supporters of both the ruling and the opposition party strongly criticised Roy and her "irresponsible, anti-development books". Copies of the book were burned in the street and bookstores refused to stock it for fear of violent reprisal. As the issue was under judicial review, the Supreme Court scheduled a hearing to decide whether to bring contempt charges against Roy for her "attempt to undermine the dignity of the court and influence the course of justice." They finally decided not to press charges.
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| 1998 World
Press Freedom Review Philip Mathew Managing Editor and
Director The media scene in India in 1998 is not coloured official-red, for there has not been any killing by the forces, or by the brutal machine of the establishment. But it’s no consolation since a handful of journalists have lost their lives in an effort to uphold the freedom of the press. In January, journalist Ankur Borbora disappeared from Calcutta and remains untraced to date. Police suspect that he was kidnapped by north eastern militants. In May, a reporter for a local Hindu language paper was shot dead in Hapur in the state of Uttar Pradesh (UP). Police suspect personal enemity as the motive. In a similar incident in October, Rajesh Tyagi, a reporter for the Hindi daily Jagaran, was murdered in Modinager in UP. In the same state, in November, the reporter for the Hindi daily Aaj, Hyder Nagvi, ws killed by the local mafia in the industrial city of Kanpur. Nagvi’s killers are still at large. P. Ramakrishna, managing director of Siti Cable and resident editor of Zee TV was shot dead in Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh state in September. Business rivalry was reportedly behind the incident. In July, Manohar Gulabchand Agarwal, editor of a local weekly Wiratta Ratna was stabbed to death in Akola in Maharashtra state. In this case police also attribute the murder to personal enemity. Aside from these unaccounted killings, the year was punctuated with numerous cases of assault on journalists and threats to their lives. In Kashmir, where at least eight media men have lost their lives since 1990 at the hands of the armed militants, no killing of journalist has been reported this year. The printed press in India provides a plurality of published opinion and vigilantly monitors the activities of those in power. Doordarsan, the national television network and All India Radio, which are government monopolies, are often charged with adopting the government agenda. There are, however, cases when they are not spared. The greatest concern of
journalists lies with the fact that those who manhandle The focus of the atrocities towards the press this year was on the North Eastern States, among whom Assam came notoriously first. Early in January, Assamese police beat Avirook Sen, the correspondent for India Today magazine and his wife, Suparna Sharma, a reporter for The Indian Express newspaper, and briefly detained the couple. On February 7, Prakash Mahanta, a reporter for the newly founded Assamese-language weekly newspaper Natoon Somoy (New Times) was assaulted and detained by the local police. A group of Assamese police officers known locally as the "Black Panthers", led by Superintendent of Police Harmit Singh, raided Mahanta’s house in Nagaon, took him into custody and destroyed furnishings in his home. The police blindfolded Mahanta and beat him with an iron stick while shouting, "We’ll teach you a lesson for writing against the Chief Minister and his wife!" The police also assaulted Mahanta’s mother and wife when they tried to intervene. Mahanta, bleeding severely, was taken to the Nagaon Sadar Police Station. He was charged with unbailable clauses such as aiding and abetting terrorism in Assam and was sent to jail in judicial custody. After three months detention, he obtained bail on the condition that he appear in person before the local police station every week until the charges are absolved. The legal battle is continuing. Mahanta had exposed and campaigned against irregularities and corrupt practices by Dr. Jayashree Goswami Mahanta, the wife of Assam’s Chief Minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, who was running for a parliamentary seat representing Nagaon in the Indian general elections. In recent times, Prakesh Mahanta had ruined many of Chief Minister Mahanta’s breakfasts with his candid reporting on the misdeeds of local officials. On 15 May 1998, Dhiren Chakravarty and Atanu Bhuyan, editor and executive editor respectively, of the Guwahati-based daily Ajir Batori, were woken up in the middle of the night and arrested by the local policemen. They were charged with defaming assembly and its members in an article published two months previously. They were asked to stand with heads bowed down before the deputies in the assembly in punishment. When they refused to do so they were jailed for 24 hours. Atanu Bhuyan was physically assaulted by unidentified men at his house earlier in the year. The attack is believed to have been instigated by those at the helm of the local government. On the very next day, Guwahti University campus witnessed an attempt on the life of Hiren Dika, a student and reporter for a local daily Amar Asom, which is published from the state capital Guwahati. He was sleeping when the assailants broke into his room. Deka was stabbed in the chest and back and his right hand was badly broken. Deka’s bold writings on university issues had apparently provoked the attack. The next in a series of violations of press freedom took place two months later when Ajit Kumar Bhuyan, editor of the Assamese news weekly Natun Samoy, was assaulted at his residence by armed men on July 18. Bhuyan was threatened, his residence ransacked, and his family members terrorized by about 20 armed men in civilian attire, allegedly as revenge for his newspaper’s criticism of the Indian army in Assam. Military authorities in Assam however denied responsibility for the attack. The armed men surrounded his house and asked him to come outside and threatened to open fire if the order was not obeyed. Once Bhuyan and his family members were outside the house, the assaulters rushed in to ransack the house which also houses the offices of his newspaper. A van carrying about 100,000 copies of Aji Batori (Assamese daily), North East Observer and other newspapers was burnt in September allegedly by workers of Assam Gana Parishad, the ruling party in Assam. Manipur went a step further in muzzling the media by enforcing censorship in news coverage. The Manipur government in October issued a set of guidelines for the local media directing it not to publish any statement or handout released by the outlawed militant outfits, including any other news item that amounted to ‘sedition’. Any newspaper organisation that violates the order would be dealt with severely under the "rule of the law". At least five incidents of security men harassing journalists while at work have been reported from Manipur this year. Most of them had to face queries related to possible links to the militants. In a shocking incident, the Manipur police assaulted a senior journalist, Zahid Khan, associate editor of a monthly language magazine Anouba Yawol on his way to Lilong and stole Rs. 7000 from him. A police sub-inspector and some other policemen on duty allegedly abused him, saying, "You bloody pressman, you don’t write anything good for the people," while beating and robbing him. Puyam Theiba, a reporter for the local Manipuri newspaper Panthungfam, was assaulted on July 2 by army soldiers when they raided his house. The soldiers claimed that the scribe was involved in separatist activities. Journalists in the North Eastern states of India work under threat either from the terrorists or from the government as the case of Mathew Marak, editor of the daily Achik Mikasal of Meghalaya, evidences. On July 7, he received a letter containing death threats from terrorist groups belonging to the separatist Achik National Volunteer Council. The militants said in their threats that Marak had written several reports which were "not correct." The editor had written a series of critical reports against the militants which prompted the threats. It is heartening to note that journalists and common people in Shillong took part in a procession with placards and banners protesting against the attempts by the outlawed militants to throttle freedom of the press. They later submitted a memorandum to the Chief Minister B. B. Lingdoh drawing the attention of the government to the threats received by journalists in the state. Three months earlier, a photo journalist, W. T. Jryne, was assaulted by unidentified gunmen in Shillong. The journalist managed to escape, but suffered injuries. On October 17, Pradeep Behera, a senior journalist with the English-language daily Arunachal Times was assaulted by six unidentified persons armed with lethal weapons who entered his home in the state of Arunachal Pradesh. He was hospitalized, suffering from chest, head and leg injuries. It seems that the attack followed the publication of critical articles on social issues. The process of criminalization of politics has taken its toll on the freedom of the press in Bihar, especially of those who work in the remote districts. Journalists being beaten up at the hands of the criminals-turned-politicians have become a regular feature in these areas. An English language daily published from Patna carried a story on how the illiterate chief minister, Rabri Devi, fumbled for words during her maiden independence day speech and how the district magistrate of Patna, Rajbala Verma, prompted her. Immediately after the district administration came out with a notice regarding renewal of lease of the land on which the office of that newspaper is situated. The notice was served although the lease of the land had been renewed a month previously. One of the members of the legislative assembly belonging to the ruling party, who publicly assaulted a senior scribe of a local English daily, was promoted to minister. Recommendations of a committee of Bihar Assembly over the beating up of a senior journalist is still gathering dust in the secretariat. In another incident an eveninger was driven out of the government’s premises because it dared to publish revealing reports on the functioning of the state government. It was only after the intervention of the court that the eveninger was reinstated. Earlier, the resident editor Times of India, Patna, Uttam Sen Gupta also had bitter experiences for daring to expose a corrupt government, when his car was damaged in the immediate wake of his newspaper carrying stories on a scam. Financial Express journalist Shivaji Sarkar was among a group of bus passengers returning from a pilgrimage who were beaten by army personnel in the hill region of Uttar Pradesh state on 23 June, according to IFJ. The passengers had earlier objected to an army vehicle blocking the road. The vehicle pulled up alongside the bus and 20 to 25 army personnel got out and starting beating the passengers. When the soldiers came on board, Sarkar clearly identified himself as a member of the press; however, they beat him, and others, nonetheless. He sustained injuries to his right eye. In another incident the photographer of Times of India, Lucknow edition, was physically attacked, his camera snatched away and the film roll spoiled when he was taking photographs for a news story related to a big business house of the area. A complaint was lodged in vain and the culprits have not been apprehended to date. South India, though it appears much better for the media than the North, still has cases to beckon national attention and resist complacency. Four journalists of Kerala, including two photographers, were hospitalised with serious injuries after they were attacked at the additional District Court in Kollam by activists of the ruling Marxist Communist Party (CPM) on June 16. The police stayed away from the court premises until the attack was over. The journalists are Tony Dominic of the daily Malayala Manorama; Josey George of the daily Deepika; Chandra Bose of the daily Mathrubhumi; and P. Manoj, also of the Mathrubhumi. The journalists had been at the court to report on the verdict in a double murder case in which CPM activists were charged with the murder of two political opponents. The court found three of the accused guilty of the offence. The attack on the journalists, which appeared to have been premeditated, began when the photographers tried to take pictures of the accused as they were brought to the court under police escort. The crowd outside the court seized the cameras from the photographers and destroyed them, brutally beating both the photographers and the reporters who tried to rescue them. A mob attack on a newspaper office was reported from Tamil Nadu, the neighbouring state. Fifty armed men attacked the Madurai office of the Tamil-language daily newspaper Dinamalar in the early morning of March 1. Bearing clubs and knives, the armed men assaulted the office watch-man, hurled four molotov cocktails, and destroyed property which included press equipment, windows, electrical fixtures, furniture, and automobiles. CPJ reported that the action came during the country’s parliamentary elections and followed the newspaper’s recent critical coverage of the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) party. A threat from the fundamentalist Muslim organisation Al Umma to blow up the Chennai and Madurai offices of the English language daily Indian Express is also among the reports from Tamil Nadu. The Juvenile Welfare Board of Delhi state government ordered police in July to confiscate footage from Zee Television on an observation home for boys. The footage was alleged to have been taken without permission. The confiscation was ordered under the Juvenile Justice Act which prohibits disclosing the name, address of school, or any other particulars calculated to lead to identification of the juvenile, or publishing any picture of any such juvenile, except with permission. In September, Cable TV operators in Jammu and Kashmir state, under threat from militants, stopped showing "irregularities and unethical" programmes and suspended the showing of Star Movies, MTV, Sun TV, Star World, TVI, Raj TV, CTV 4 and some other channels. Two noteworthy developments relating to freedom of the press in India took place in 1998. The US watchdog body FreedomHouse labelled the Indian media as partly free with 37 points. Its scoring rate is 0-30: free, 31-60: partly free, 61-100: not free. In the rest of South Asia, Afghanistan scored 100, Maldives 66, Bhutan 65, Nepal 59, Pakistan 58, Bangladesh 57 and Sri Lanka 50. The other development was there appeared the names of seven Indian journalists in the 27 names inscribed on the Journalists Memorial in Freedom Park in Washington, where names of journalists killed in the course of duty appear. Inspite of the ardent commitment to the profession required to find one’s name inscribed on the memorial, India feels relieved to have no fresh additions in 1998 to this list.
| Back to Asia selection | Back to World selection | 1997 World Press Freedom Review YET AGAIN, the Indian-administered region of Kashmir proved a deadly battleground for journalists in 1997. Two journalists were killed there this year. On January 1, Altaf Ahmed Faktoo, a news broadcaster for the government-owned television network, Doordarshan, was shot dead by suspected militant separatists in the Kashmiri capital, Srinagar. Sydan Shafi, a Doordarshan reporter, was shot dead, together with his bodyguard, by two unidentified gunmen in Srinagar on March 16. Once again, no one actually claimed responsibility for the killing, although separatists had threatened Shafi after condemning his "biased" reporting of the conflict in Kashmir in the weekly news programme, "Kashmir File." The two murders brought
the number of journalists killed in Kashmir to eight
since 1990, when Kashmiri militants began their rebellion
against Indian rule in the Himalayan region. More than
20,000 people have been killed in the six-year revolt. At
least 20 Kashmiri journalists were injured on June 27
when police tear-gassed and baton-charged their
procession. Witnesses said that police had also fired
shots into the air to disperse the journalists, who were
protesting over the police use of force against reporters
covering a women's demonstration earlier the same day.
Half a dozen reporters - including Surinder Singh Oberoi,
a correspondent for the French news agency, Agence
France-Presse - were beaten up in the earlier clash near
the United Nations Military Observer Office in Srinagar.
At least six women were also injured, and two arrested.
Oberoi was reportedly attacked after he had asked another
journalist, Taussef Mustafa, to photograph police beating
two women protesters. As well as physical attacks on journalists in Kashmir, both separatists and pro-government militants have forced newspapers to halt publication there. And in July 1996, militiamen supporting Indian rule took 19 reporters hostage and threatened to kill four of them unless their editors agreed to meet them. The hostages were later freed by the Army. Violent assaults on the press have also taken place in other parts of India. On July 7, 40 men stormed into the Bangalore office of Asian Age, stabbed two journalists and chopped off the thumb of a guard. The mob then smashed and burned computers and office equipment. The assailants had apparently been angered by a news report in the paper about a poster in a West Bank town which depicted the prophet Mohammed as a pig. However, it was not clear why Asian Age had been specifically targeted, since most media in the region had reported the incident The other major media story in India this year was the government's approval of a broadcasting Bill on May 5. Under the new law, television and radio stations will be licensed by an autonomous body, the Broadcasting Authority of India. The law also restricts foreign investment in Indian stations to 49 per cent, and cross-media ownership to 20 per cent. |
