Zeeshan Mumtaz
ISLAMABAD: Narendra Modi-led fascist Hindutva Indian government is victimizing and targeting journalists for exposing Indian brutalities on Kashmiris. The Indian troops’ brutalities against Kashmiris have been revealed by political experts and analysts. These analysts have decried the atrocities being faced by the journalists in the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJ&K).
These experts gave interviews in Srinagar and stated that the Modi fascist extremist Hindutva ruling regime is using “different intimidating tactics to harass the journalists” and forcing them to the policy and line of the Modi fascist regime, Kashmir Media Service (KMS) reported.
They said that Indian Illegal Occupied Jammu and Kashmir IIOJK is the most dangerous and worst place for journalists and reporters to work independently and freely.
They mentioned that the media persons and journalists are being abducted, threatened, tortured, and harassed for independent journalism, seeking truth and “doing their job.”
Regime Atrocities, Human Rights Violation in Occupied Kashmir
Analysts and experts said that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, widely known as RSS, is a Hindu right-wing nationalist paramilitary organization mandated to work to make India a Hindu nationalist state.
The current Modi fascist government is backed by RSS, making life hard on minorities and people of Indian Illegal Occupied Jammu &Kashmir, including revoking of special status of IIOJ&K with atrocities, abductions, human rights violations, forced disappearances, tortures, and prolonged curfew in the occupied valley, they added.
Kashmiri people have been facing human rights violations, atrocities, ethnic cleansing, and abductions for 70 years since the independence of India.
According to political experts, this RSS BJP Modi fascist regime is using agencies like the well-known State Investigation Agency (SIA) and National Investigation Agency (NIA) to regularly raid the residences and offices of journalists and media persons in the Occupied territory of Jammu & Kashmir.
Current Situation of Journalists in Indian-Occupied Kashmir
The political experts and media analysts highlighted that for the last week, numerous media persons and journalists have been summoned by occupied authorities to the police stations daily to harass and pressurize them in the so-called interrogations and questioning.
Statements and Interviews state that numerous Kashmiri journalists, including prominent Aasif Sultan and Fahd Shah face illegal detention and enforced disappearances under draconian laws like the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment Act, 2008 (35 of 2008), etc.
In a statement, it is said that Kashmiri journalists are being taken into custody under draconian and suppressor laws for speaking truth and journalism.
By using the Indian state machinery’s draconian laws, Indian-occupied authorities are harassing and targeting the media persons and journalists in IIOJ&K. This situation escalated after the revoking of the special status of IIOJ&K on August 5, 2019, the statement added.
More than three and half years since August 2019 after the revocation of the special status of IIOJK, in which BJP-RSS led Indian government revoked Articles 370 and 35(A) of the Indian constitution, which formerly guaranteed the Jammu and Kashmir territory’s unique constitutional status.
Aside from this constitutional issue, a violation of the right of self-determination granted under UNSC resolutions to the People of Occupied Kashmir by India, a total media and communication embargo.
International Organizations Reports on Indian Suppression of Media in IIOJK
According to Human Rights Watch, journalists, civil society organizations, and human rights campaigners have been subjected to a crackdown under the guise of counterterrorism and public safety regulations since 2019.
Amnesty International has stated in a study that repression of the people of IIOJK, notably journalists, has escalated dramatically. This involves constraints on the freedoms of opinion and speech in particular.
Report: We Are Being Punished by the Law
The report’s title, ‘We Are Being Punished by the Law,’ is both symbolic and significant in this sense. For instance, since 2019, 180 journalists were summoned and harassed at various police stations. The ‘Kashmir Press Club’ has also been closed since January of this year.
‘Stock White Investigations’ (SWI), a UK-based investigative business, has also released a study titled ‘India Silencing Journalism and Human Rights in Kashmir,’ which details how the Indian government is systematically silencing the voices of journalists and human rights activists operating in IIOJK.
The draconian laws like ‘Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) the Indian Penal Code, and the Public Safety Act, all of which give the state broad authority to label anybody a terrorist, have been utilized, and some journalists have been charged under these statutes.
Unlawful situations involving journalists
SWI also highlights a number of unlawful situations involving journalists, as well as how they were punished and denied justice. For example, Kashmiri journalists Sajad Gul, Fahad Shah, and Asif Sultan were accused under these laws and held for extended periods of time despite being granted bail by the courts.
The research also indicates that the Indian government has ensured that no critical media reportage of the Indian government’s misdeeds reaches the outside world.
Concerning human rights violations, the SWI report is based on the compilation of 2000 Kashmiri testimony from 2020-21.
The bulk of incidents involve extrajudicial executions, forced disappearances, kidnapping, torture, and sexual abuse against women.
Incidents of torture, cases of pellet gun victims
SWI report discloses 450 incidents of torture, 1,500 cases of pellet gun victims, 100 forced disappearances, and 30 occurrences of sexual abuse against women in this respect. In this regard occupying troops have seized victims from reaching to media and journalists for reporting of these crimes.
The study also claims that India’s higher authorities, including former army commander General Manoj Mukund Naravane and Home Minister Amit Shah, as well as eight other top military officials, are to blame for the crimes and must be held accountable. In this context, the SWI presented considerable material to the UK Metropolitan Police’s War Crimes Unit in January 2022.
These international agency studies raise serious concerns regarding India’s claim to be the world’s largest democracy, where democratic ideals such as freedom of expression, communication, and human rights exist and flourish.
In contrast to this discourse, India’s current media policy proclaims reporting on such abuse and censorship to be a danger to the country’s sovereignty. This inconsistency demonstrates that India has been involved in systematic repression of media freedom and human rights violations, particularly in the previous three years.
Political Experts on Current Situation of Media in Indian Occupied Kashmir
The political experts and analysts from Kashmir indicated that in IIOJ&K, a high number of journalists had been killed and numerous injured by Indian-occupied forces since 1989.
Modi RSS Regime defames and restricts journalists, media reporters, and media organizations from independent working and survival for exposing Indian brutalities and atrocities in the Indian-occupied Kashmir valley, commonly referred to as IIOJ&K.
India has grabbed every right and protection, prominently the right to press freedom, but these discriminatory and oppressor Indian actions against Journalists and Media persons cannot hide Indian state terrorism and Human Rights Violations and crimes by suppressing media and press in Indian Occupied Kashmir, Political experts and Analysts added.
Seeking attention of UN, UNSC EU
Curbs and suppressions on media freedom and freedom of expression in IIOJ&K are immediately seeking the attention of world nations and International governing bodies like the United Nations, United Nations Security Council UNSC, and the European Union.
The political experts and analysts also said that assault, suppression, and human rights violations on Kashmiri journalists, reporters, and media organizations should be a “wake-up call” for international media organizations and the global community.
