21 August 2019: The Indian Journalists Union (IJU) and its affiliate Journalists Union of Assam (JUA) has expressed serious concern over propaganda under the “NRC” Authority logo to malign and brand a group of renowned journalists from across the country as anti-national for their critical reports and articles on ongoing National Register of Citizens exercise being undertaken in Assam in different media outlets.

The IJU views this as a hate campaign and crass intolerance against opinions and reports of professional journalists. In a statement, IJU President and Press Council of India member Amar Devulapalli and Secretary General and IFJ Vice President Sabina Inderjit condemned the hate campaign and termed it as an attack on the right to free speech and expression. JUA President and IJU Vice President Geetartha Pathak, who has been closely following and writing on the NRC exercise, said the document is an attack on the profession of journalism and a mischievous attempt to intimidate journalists to refrain from reporting and analysing the   ground reality in Assam.  

While the IJU has noted that the NRC Authority has claimed, after three days since the document appeared that it has “nothing to do with its creation or circulation”, it demands that the authority investigate the origin of the document, which it termed as “anti-NRC propaganda”. Further, the IJU urged all social media platforms to not only withdraw the hate campaign against professional journalists, but to guard against such propaganda.