SRINAGAR: Journalists are working in the most wearisome conditions in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK), facing miseries and severe repercussions for reporting the ground realities and truth about the territory.
A special report released by a media group on the occasion of International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists and media persons, today, disclosed that the BJP-led Indian government is utilizing black laws and undemocratic tactics to throttle media in the occupied Kashmir.
The report also lamented that prominent Kashmiri media persons like Majid Hyderi, lrfan Meraaj, and Sajjad Gul are currently confronting detentions under draconian laws. It also pointed out that the victimization of journalists in Occupied Kashmir has also increased manifold since August 05, 2019, when the BJP-led government in India repealed special constitutional status of the region.
The report added that journalists in Occupied Kashmir face murder attempts, killings, arrests and threats at the hands of Indian forces on daily basis and a number of journalists have been killed and scores wounded since 1989 in Occupied Kashmir.
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It stated that India has made independent journalism almost impossible in Occupied Kashmir following introducing the so-called media policy in 2020. Journalists and media persons are harassed, kidnapped, threatened and even tortured just for doing their job in Occupied Kashmir, it deplored.
The report further asserts that the Indian government wants to hide the ground realities from the international community by criminalizing journalism in occupied Jammu and Kashmir. It also calls on the world must come forward to rescue independent media in the Occupied Kashmir and pressure India to allow media outlets to operate independently.
Since assuming power in 2014, the BJP extremist government has arrested more than 20 journalists in Occupied Kashmir and India, including Fahad Shah, Aasif Sultan, Majid Hyderi, Irfan Meraaj, Manan Dar, Sajjad Gul, Kamran Yousuf, Qazi Shibli, Santosh Yadav, Baltej Pannu, Surinder Singh, Somaru Nag, Anand Teltumbde, Vinod Verma, Siddique Kappan, Gautam Navlakha, Ashutosh Negi, Tanveer Warsi, Rajeev Sharma, Prabir Purkayastha, Wasim Akram Tyagi, Mohammad Jamaludin, and Zakir Ali Tyagi.
