Silencing Journalists in India Violation of Journalists’ Rights in India 2000-2018 Human Rights Law Network (HRLN) In Parnership with Press Club of India, Delhi Union of Journalists, Indian Women Press Corps, Brihmumbai Journalists Union, Mumbai Press Club and Media Studies Group 1 HUMAN RIGHTS LAW NETWORK • To protect fundamental human rights, increase access to basic resources for the marginalised communities, and eliminate discrimination. • To create a justice delivery system that is accessible, accountable, transparent, efficient and affordable, and works for the underprivileged. Raise the level of pro bono legal expertise for the poor to make the work uniformly competent as well as compassionate. • Professionally train a new generation of public interest lawyers and paralegals who are comfortable in the world of law as well as in social movements, and who learn from social movements to refine legal concepts and strategies. Silencing Journalists in India September 2019 © Socio Legal Information Centre* Research: Bonnie Smith, Sarita Ramamoorthy, Laxmi Murthy, Aditi Saxena Editor: Laxmi Murthy ISBN No.: 97881-934737-0-2 Design & Printed at: Shivam Sundram Published by Human Rights Law Network (Division of Socio-Legal Information Centre) 576, Masjid Road, Jangpura New Delhi - 110014 Phone No: +91-11-24374501 Disclaimer Text has been compiled from various sources for the purpose of this book. Photographs used are from those available on the internet through a generic search. *Any section of this volume may be reproduced without prior permission of HRLN for public interest purposes with appropriate acknowledgment. 2 3 INTRODUCTION: A Dangerous Profession Journalism in India has always been a difficult calling. The country’s diversity, complex political dynamics and sharp inequalities of caste and class present a challenge for journalists across the board. Despite the constitutionally guaranteed right to freedom of expression, attacks on the press are rife, from murder and physical attacks to online trolling, intimidation and slapping of false cases as a form of harassment. The sources of threats are many: from governments, armed militants, politicians, corrupt officials, corporations, land mafia, and fundamentalists of all religions who continue to attempt to silence journalists. Too many have paid the ultimate price for uncovering the truth. From 2000-2018, as many as 64 journalists have been killed in the line of duty, 55 of them deliberately targeted. Uttar Pradesh, with a low record of law and order holds the distinction of the state with the highest number of journalists killed since 2000 (12), followed by conflict-wracked Assam and Jammu and Kashmir with six killings each. The wall of impunity has yet to be dented, with very few perpetrators having been brought to justice. A notable exception was the awarding of a life sentence to self-styled ‘godman’ Gurmeet Ram Rahim and three others by a CBI special court on January 17, 2019, holding them guilty of the murder of Sirsa-based journalist Ram Chander Chhatrapati in 2002. With the recent exceptions of the cold-blooded shooting of Gauri Lankesh in 2017 in Bangalore and Shujaat Bukhari in 2018 in Srinagar, it is journalists in small towns and remote corners of India, working with the regional press, who are particularly vulnerable to threat, intimidation and assault. With no job security, regular or decent wages, medical or accident cover, these intrepid news gatherers risk their all to investigate and report news in the public interest. In many cases, they are stringers and freelancers, who are fighting prolonged and lone battles in courts, often without any support from the media houses they work for. 3 In recent years, the state in the name of “national security” is increasingly using draconian laws to crack down on press freedom; restrict the rights and security of journalists and deny access to information. Cases of defamation criminal and SLAPPs (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) are deployed in order to silence and induce self-censorship – a grave threat to freedom of expression. The digital transition has transformed access to and dissemination of news, views and information in unprecedented ways. Alongside, governments and corporations are seeking to control and regulate this flow in increasingly aggressive ways. This ever-increasing control, hearteningly, has also been accompanied by a push-back from sections of the media community as well as courts, where ‘reasonable restrictions’ on the fundamental right to free expression are being debated with vigour. As a response to the increasing intolerance toward independent journalism and the rising violence against journalists, this report seeks to systematically document the killings of media persons in the line of duty as well as cases aimed to clampdown on freedom of expression. This database will form the basis of advocacy to challenge violations of journalists’ rights and curtailment of the right to freedom of expression. 4 5 FOREWORD Journalists ---independent and honest---strike fear in all governments. Democratic or authoritarian, as the difference between the two is now more blurred than ever before. Journalists come in the way of propaganda, bust myths, and images by reporting facts. Hence they are inconvenient, and in an increasingly corporatised world, expendable even in so called democracies. In an authoritarian situation the press is the first to be barred, with governments usurping powers to ensure that journalists are not allowed into the field lest the truth be out. India is no exception, in fact has not been for long. The first formal evidence of authoritarian intolerance was the Emergency when Indira Gandhi imposed censorship, jailed scribes, and busted newspapers to ensure that her authoritarian actions did not come under question. Subsequently, governments did not impose censorship by law but never relented in the quest to silence journalists. Corporates have been used for the past three decades to bring in controls on the media they own ---and this really covers almost the entire gamut of newspapers and television channels---to ensure that a government’s will is implemented. And that inconvenient news disappears from the headlines. This has been further twisted to ensure that non-news becomes the news, and fake news often the headlines. In the process journalists have been targeted. By governments, mafias, criminals and others on an individual basis. The numbers of scribes killed have gone up, as have the numbers of those sacked and threatened. In an environment where the media has been taught to be conformist by the owners, and the professional editor has been dispensed with altogether, journalists crawl even when not asked to. Those who do not are then threatened, sacked, in today’s world trolled, newspapers shut down at the drop of a hat in the name of security, and editors fired without notice. Arrests too are becoming more commonplace with scribes finding themselves behind bars for little more than a Facebook post. The messenger thus is becoming the first target of growing intolerance and increasing authoritarianism the world over. This has been noted and protested against by scribes across the globe, but the 5 violence unleashed continues to engulf the world of journalism that is seen as the impediment by those seeking absolute power without accountability. Seema Mustafa Founding Editor-in-Chief The Citizen 6 7 Committee FOR THE DEFENCE OF Journalists Colin Gonsalves A National Consultation on Media Freedom and Law was held at the Press Club of India on 8th and 9th August 2015 at which over 100 persons (professionals) from across India participated on the issue of attacks on media persons. Apart from physical attacks, issues such as criminal cases filed against journalists, sexual harassment, contempt of court, disclosure of sources, privilege motions, corporate takeover of media houses and the like were also discussed. The organisers of the National Consultation were Press Club of India, Delhi Union of Journalists, Mumbai Press Club, Indian Women’s Press Corps, Indian Federation of Working Journalists, Majithia Implementation Sangharsh Samiti, Media Legal Defence Initiative and Human Rights Law Network and others. It was suggested by many of the participants that a network ought to be established for the defence of journalists. Several meetings were organised in Delhi and elsewhere where similar views were expressed. In collaboration with various organisations of journalists, meetings were organised in Imphal, Guwahati and Bangalore. Then this publication titled “Silencing Journalists in India” profiling those journalists who were killed or persecuted in the line of duty, was prepared and published and is being released at press conferences in various parts of the country. In the meanwhile, journalists’ groups throughout the country have held a series of meetings discussing attacks and persecution of journalists and in every meeting the need for a national network of media persons, lawyers, doctors, academics, judges, activists, students and others to come to the defence of media persons has been articulated. With every passing year the situation becomes more dire. HRLN therefore, in collaboration with others, intends to put in place with immediate effect a small unit at Delhi with a fulltime journalist and lawyer to coordinate the work of consolidating the network. Soon thereafter we hope to open desks in other states. 7 HRLN will put at the disposal of this network