New Delhi, 19 August 2020: The Indian Journalists Union condemns the UP police action of again arresting journalist Prashant Kanojia following a complaint against his alleged tweet filed by a BJP leader in Lucknow. Demanding his immediate release, the IJU questioned the FIR lodged against Kanojia and whether there was rule of law in Yogi Adityanath’s State.
As per reports, Kanojia, who is with the Transcontinental Times, was arrested from his Delhi residence on Tuesday afternoon. His wife is quoted saying, “There were five-six people. Only one of them was in uniform. The rest were in civil clothes. At first, they gave us no reason as to why he was being arrested, except to say that orders had come from above.” She went to the Vasant Vihar police station and was told that “the men along with Kanojia have crossed Noida and were en route Lucknow.”
The FIR filed in Lucknow on Monday, after a complaint by one Dinesh Kumar Shukla is under IPC sections 153 (A), 153 (B), 420, 465, 468, 469, 500, 505(1)(b), 505(2) and 66, which deal with defamation and “attacks upon the religion, race, place of birth, residence, language etc of any particular group or class or upon the founders and prophets of a religion”, among others.
The FIR accuses Kanojia of having tweeted a morphed Facebook post by Sushil Tiwari of the Hindu Army on 10 August, wherein it said Islamic studies should be replaced by Vedic studies in the UPSC syllabus. The FIR further states this post was subsequently edited to state that OBC/SC/ST will not be allowed in Ayodhya’s Ram Mandir and this edited photo was then tweeted by Kanojia on 16 August and then deleted it later.
In a statement, IJU President and former Member, Press Council of India Geetartha Pathak and IJU Secretary General and IFJ Vice President Sabina Inderjit said the UP government’s intimidation, harassment and arrest of Kanojia smacks of vindictiveness and contempt for freedom of speech and expression. The government must stop passing on the buck and put its own house right insofar as law and order is concerned.
Noting that this isn’t the first time UP police has taken action against Kanojia (he was arrested in June last year and the Supreme Court had asked that he be released), the IJU demanded that the UP police release Kanojia immediately and that the government refrain from gagging free speech and harassing journalists, which amounts to an attack on press freedom.
For Publication
Sabina Inderjit
Secretary General
IJU Condemns attack on The Caravan journalists
New Delhi, 13 August 2020: The Indian Journalists Union strongly condemns the mob attack on three journalists of The Caravan on 11 August in Northeast Delhi while they were reporting on a story concerning a Delhi violence complaint. Worse, the attack had communal overtones and the police at the Bhajanpura station refused to register FIRs against the complaints filed by the journalists. The IJU demands a thorough investigation and the culprits as identified be brought to book.
As per a report in The Caravan, three of its journalists-- Shahid Tantray, Prabhjit Singh and a woman journalist (name withheld) had gone to Subhash Mohalla, in northeast Delhi’s North Ghonda neighbourhood, to follow up about a woman complainant in a case related to the Delhi violence, who had accused police officials at the Bhajanpura police station of beating and sexually assaulting her and her 17-year-old daughter on the night of 8 August. During a follow-up, the three journalists were ‘under attack, subjected to communal slurs, threatened with murder, and sexually harassed’ for around an hour and a half.
The journalists said the report, were taking photographs of ‘saffron flags that had been tied in the area, when some men approached them and told them to stop. One of them, wearing a saffron kurta and had a bandage on his arm, identified himself as a “BJP General Secretary.” Tantray was asked for his identity card and it was then the mob launched their attack upon realising that he was a Muslim. While attempting to get away from the attack, the woman journalist faced sexual harassment from a middle-aged man who exposed himself to her. Later, the mob attacked her as well.’
In statement, IJU President and former Member, Press Council of India Geetartha Pathak and Secretary General and IFJ Vice President Sabina Inderjit, said the assault was an attack on freedom of press and this growing trend of deliberate attack on journalists of a certain community was unacceptable in any democratic society. The journalists were also forced to delete the photographs by the unruly mob, which amounted to gagging the truth from being reported. The IJU recalled that the incident was similar to those experienced by many journalists covering the Northeast Delhi riots in February.
The Union also condemned the role of the police by refusing to file an FIR at the Bhajanpura station police station, after the journalists filed a complaint, saying that the other side too had filed one. This said the IJU was a sad commentary on the rule of law in the country’s national Capital and that there was dereliction of duty. The Union demanded the Delhi Government, the Union Home Ministry and Union Information & Broadcasting Ministry take cognisance of the incident and order a thorough investigation and ensure that the culprits are booked. Inaction would amount to making a mockery of the Government’s claim of India having a free press.
For Publication
Sabina Inderjit
Secretary General
