US government must ‘urge India to end its media crackdown’ during Modi-Biden meet: CPJ

The Committee to Protect Journalists issued a statement yesterday asking the US government to “urge India to end its media crackdown” and “release six journalists arbitrarily detained in retaliation for their work”.

The six journalists were identified as Aasif Sultan, Gautam Navlakha, Sajad Gul, Fahad Shah, Rupesh Kumar Singh and Irfan Mehraj.

The statement was issued ahead of prime minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the United States on June 21, during which he’ll meet with US president Joe Biden. CPJ had also organised an online discussion on press freedom in India ahead of the meeting.

“India is the world’s largest democracy, and it needs to live up to that by ensuring a free and independent media – and we expect the United States to make this a core element of discussions,” said CPJ president Jodie Ginsberg.

CPJ called on the US government to urge India to act on the following press violations: the “harassment of the domestic and foreign media” including “routine raids and retaliatory income tax investigations”, the “media crackdown in Kashmir”, “ongoing impunity in cases of killed journalists”, and “digital media restrictions” using the IT Rules 2021. At least 62 journalists have been killed for their work in India since 1992.

Just this week, a journalist in Chhattisgarh was arrested for “spreading rumours” on government officials – the second arrest of a journalist in the state in as many weeks. Read about it here.