Since the beginning of the year, the police have arrested three journalists and closes the press club that ensured the protection of independent media.
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The freedom to inform oneself is reduced every day a little more in the Kashmir. Since the beginning of the year, the authorities have made a wave of very disturbing arrests. The series started on January 5th, with Sajad Ahmad Dar, 23, journalist at The Kashmir Walla, who covered a manifestation and tweeted a video of a family shouting hostile slogans in India. He was arrested for “criminal conspiracy”.
One month later, on February 4th, it was the founder and editor of this title, the main media of investigations in this region, which was imprisoned. Fahad Shah, 33, is accused of “sedition” and “apology of terrorism, dissemination of false news and incentive to violence and hatred”. This journalist, recognized for the quality of his work, published on 30 January an article on a shootout in Pulwana who had cost the four people suspected of being separatist activists. He risks prison for life. His lawyer, Umair Ronga, denounces, in vain, “the end of the rule of law in Kashmir”.
The arrest of the journalist under the Illegal Activity Prevention Act has generated a lot of emotion. Fifty-eight organizations for the defense of freedom of the press, and human rights associations have written to the Lieutenant Governor of Jammu and Kashmir, Manoj Sinha, who represents the Indian government to “get his immediate release and The withdrawal of all police investigations open to his journalistic work “. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) sees a new evidence of “the disappearance of independent journalism” in this region. Human Rights Watch estimates that “the arrest of Fahad Shah is only the last attempt of the Indian government to scare the media who do their job and denounce abuses”.
Liberated on bail by a court, February 26, Fahad Shah was arrested a few hours later by the police for a second case. The scenario was repeated on March 5th. Released, the reporter again was imprisoned in the same day, in application, this time, the Public Safety Act. In two months, he was indicted in three cases for exercising his information.
“The three arrests of the Fahad Shah journalist During the last month in Kashmir have once again gave rise to thinking that the Jammu-et-Kashmir police believed to have accounts for itself, Or that it considers journalism as a crime, “Indian Express, in an editorial, on March 10.
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