- Friday, February 28, 2025
Journalists critical of the government and the BJP party have been jailed, harassed, and surveilled in retaliation for their work, said Jodie Ginsberg, president of Committee to Protect Journalists.
By: Shubham Ghosh
THE US-BASED Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) on Wednesday (14) called on the Joe Biden administration to urge the Indian government to put an end to alleged media crackdown and release six detained journalists, Reuters reported.
A statement from Jodie Ginsberg, president of CPJ, issued ahead of prime minister Narendra Modi’s state visit to the US next week said there had been a growing crackdown on the media in the South Asian nation since he came to power nine years ago.
“Journalists critical of the government and the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) party have been jailed, harassed, and surveilled in retaliation for their work,” Ginsberg was quoted as saying by Reuters.
“India is the world’s largest democracy, and it needs to live up to that by ensuring a free and independent media – and we expect the United States to make this a core element of discussions.”
According to the group, Washington should request India to release six journalists — Aasif Sultan, Gautam Navlakha, Rupesh Kumar Singh, Sajad Gul, Irfan Mehraj and Fahad Shah — who it said were detained under draconian security laws for their work.
It also emphasised on alleged harassment of both domestic and foreign media, including raids and retaliatory income-tax probes conducted against critical news outlets, the Reuters report added.
The statement spoke about a raid by India’s tax authorities on the BBC’s offices in Delhi and Mumbai earlier this year after the government censored a documentary on PM Modi by the broadcaster.
The CPJ also said that in recent years, foreign correspondents had reported growing visa uncertainties, restricted access to several areas, including the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, and threats of deportation for critical reporting.
The group said at least 62 journalists have been killed in India in connection with their work since 1992 and India ranked 11th on CPJ’s 2022 impunity index, with unsolved cases of at least 20 journalists murdered in the decade ending last August.
