Media bodies on October 16 sought President Droupadi Murmu’s intervention to ensure that the freedoms of speech, and to profess occupation and livelihood, in the Constitution, were protected. Journalists also held a day-long protest at the Press Club of India against attacks on media freedom.
In a letter to the President, the organisations said that, currently, there was an unprecedented situation faced by independent media in the country.
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“As journalists we take a lot of collective pride in the strides that our country has made in the last 75 years. There was a dark period as well when the Fourth Estate was fettered, a phase which our democracy would not like to see repeated. Today, our community faces a similar but more insidious challenge. Even as the majority in our profession face precarious working conditions, the use of draconian laws against journalists has gone up exponentially,” the letter issued by the Press Club of India said.
Earlier this month, the Delhi Police arrested news portal NewsClick’s founder and editor-in-chief, Prabir Purkayastha, and the head of its human resource department, Amit Chakravarty, under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).
Stating that many of these laws did not even acknowledge the special role that the independent press played, that of being the voice of so many diverse citizens of this country, the media bodies said: “...under some of these draconian laws, the authorities have used their unfettered right to seize equipment such as phones, laptops and hard disks -- equipment and software that are the source of livelihood for our community”.
They said that these laws did not provide for bail where incarceration was the norm and not the exception. “For a democracy to thrive and progress, its media must be free. The independent media with all its diversity has been able to bring forth many of the pressing issues faced by the ordinary people, a role that it is expected to do,” the letter said.
On Monday, the Joint Platform of Central Trade Unions and the Samyukt Kisan Morcha also issued a statement, condemning what they described as “brazen attacks” on journalists and the “muzzling of democratic organs”.
The condemned the raids on NewsClick and those associated with it, and the arrests made by the police. “It is not surprising that the reasons given include the coverage given to historic Kisan Movement, the anti-CAA movement and so on. We stand by the victimised journalists, writers, intellectuals and satirists and the stand-up comedians who have been fearlessly expressing their views in support of the common masses and exposing the ruling dispensation’s misdeeds, corruption,” they said.
They said the invocation of the UAPA’s provisions was a “blatant misuse of State power” by the BJP-led Central government. “This is nothing short of creating a fear-psychosis among the bona fide journalist community which amounts to muzzling of democracy in our country. These acts also deprive the rights of the people to have access to authentic information and news from the print and electronic media, including the ‘social media’ in our country,” the statement read.
