“The Indian courts’ decisions to grant bail to journalists Aasif Sultan, Gautam Navlakha, and Prabir Purkayastha are welcome news. We urge the Indian authorities to respect the judicial orders and immediately free these journalists, who should never have been imprisoned in the first place,” said CPJ India Representative Kunāl Majumder. “In all three cases, we have observed how authorities have tried to keep these journalists behind bars at all costs, particularly Sultan who has been arbitrarily detained for almost six years in a cycle of release and re-arrest. The Indian government must not target journalists for their critical reporting.”

Sultan was released on Tuesday, May 14, after he was granted bail on May 10 by a court in Srinagar, the largest city in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir, according to a copy of the bail order, reviewed by CPJ, and two sources familiar with the case who spoke with CPJ on condition of anonymity, citing fear of retaliation.

Sultan, India’s longest imprisoned journalist, was first arrested under the anti-terror Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) in 2018 on charges of “harboring known militants” after he published a story about a slain Kashmiri militant. Sultan was granted bail in 2022 but authorities held him at a police station for five days before rearresting him under preventative custody. In December, a court quashed that second case and he was freed in February, only to be rearrested hours after he returned home on a prison riot charge.

In a separate ruling, India’s Supreme Court on Wednesday granted bail to Purkayastha, founder and editor-in-chief of the news website NewsClick on the grounds that the police failed to inform him of the reasons for his arrest before taking him into custody, according to news reports. Purkayastha has been held since October under the UAPA and the Indian Penal Code on charges of raising funds for terrorist activities and criminal conspiracy.

The same court on Tuesday granted bail to Navlakha, a columnist at NewsClick, who has been under house arrest under the UAPA since November 2022, on accusations that he was part of a group who were responsible for violence that erupted in 2017 in the Pune district in the western state of Maharashtra, and of having links to the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist).

CPJ research shows that since 2014, at least 15 journalists have been charged or investigated under the UAPA.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

It’s a critical time for journalists. 

CPJ spoke to reporters and editors across India about their plans for covering these historic parliamentary elections in a difficult environment for the media, which has seen critical websites censored, prominent editors quit and independent outlets bought by politically-connected conglomerates, while divisive content has grown in popularity. 

Here are their biggest concerns:

Political violence 

During the run-up to the 2019 vote, there was a rise in assaults and threats against journalists during clashes between political groups, particularly in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, and Jammu and Kashmir, according to data collected by CPJ and the Armed Conflict & Location Event Data Project. 

“Our state is now very famous or infamous for pre-poll, and post-poll, and poll violence,” Ishani Datta Ray, editor of Anandabazar Patrika newspaper in the eastern state of West Bengal, said at the launch of CPJ’s safety guide for journalists covering the election. “We have to guide them [our journalists] and caution them about the perils and dangers on the field.”

Dozens of citizens were killed in West Bengal’s 2019 and 2021 elections, largely due to fierce competition between the state’s ruling Trinamool Congress and the BJP.

Datta Ray described how she spent the night on the phone to one of her journalists who was part of a group who were beaten during a clash between two political parties and trapped in a building in Kolkata, West Bengal’s capital, as party activists attempted to set fire to one of the reporters, whom they had doused in petrol. The journalists were eventually rescued by police and locals.

“Nobody should die for a newspaper. Your life is precious,” said Datta Ray. “If there is a risk, don’t go out.” 

Mob violence

Many journalists fear that they will not receive adequate protection or support from their newsrooms on dangerous assignments. 

More than a dozen journalists were harassed or injured during the 2020 Delhi riots, the capital’s worst communal violence in decades, in which more than 50 people died.

One female reporter told CPJ on condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisal, that she and a Muslim colleague were sent to out report without any safety gear.

“People were standing with knives and swords on the streets of Delhi and asking journalists for their IDs” to try to determine their faith based on their names, she said. 

The journalist’s colleague was beaten up and she was thrown on the ground by a rioter. After she posted about the incident on social media, her employer summoned her back to the office. 

“She said that everyone must be thinking that we are not protecting our reporters. I said, ‘Leave what everyone thinks. What are you doing? You are not protecting your reporter. In fact, you’re shooting the messenger,’” she told CPJ.

Datta Ray described how politicians sometimes try to turn their supporters against journalists by calling out their names at rallies and saying, “They are against us. Don’t read that newspaper.” 

“We’ve had to text people that ‘Just come out of the crowd … Don’t stay there,’” she said. “You don’t have to cover the meeting anymore. Just come out because you don’t know what could happen.’” 

Criminalization of journalism 

Since the last general election, a record number of journalists have been arrested or faced criminal charges, while numerous critical outlets have been rattled by tax department raids investigating fraud or tax evasion.  

For the last three years of CPJ’s annual prison census, India held seven journalists behind bars — the highest number since its documentation began in 1992. All but one of the 13 journalists recorded in CPJ’s 2021-23 prison censuses were jailed under security laws. Some appear in multiple annual censuses due to their ongoing incarceration. 

Six were reporting on India’s only Muslim-majority region, Kashmir, where the media has come under siege following the government’s 2019 repeal of the region’s constitutional autonomy. 

India’s longest imprisoned journalist, Aasif Sultan, was arrested in 2018 for alleged militant ties after publishing a cover story on a slain Kashmiri militant. 

Since 2014, CPJ’s research shows, at least 15 journalists have been charged under India’s anti-terror Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, which allows for detention without trial or charge for up to 180 days, since 2020.

Datta Ray also said she was dealing with a growing number of cases against local journalists.

“Every institution should have a very strong back up of a legal team,” she said, recounting how West Bengal police spent five hours raiding the house of Parkash Sinha, a journalist who covers federal investigative agencies for ABP Ananda news channel, which is part of the same media group.

“You don’t know if your write up, if your TV report, has angered any establishment, any police,” said Datta Ray, who worked with lawyers to advise the reporter via a conference call while the February raid was going on. “You can be slapped with any kind of charges.”

“They copied everything from his personal laptop and from pen drives … they cannot do but they did it,” she said. 

Sinha has denied the charges in the ongoing case, which relate to a land dispute.

Attacks by other journalists 

Under Modi, Indians have become increasingly divided along political lines — and that includes the media. Government officials have labeled critics as “anti-national” and cautioned broadcasters against content that “promotes anti-national attitudes.” 

In February, India’s news regulator ordered three news channels to take down anti-Muslim content that it said could fan religious tensions, while the Supreme Court has called for divisive TV anchors to be taken off air.

Journalists are not immune.

“Indian media is very, very polarized now,” Dhanya Rajendran, editor-in-chief of The News Minute, said at CPJ’s launch event. “We are seeing a clear divide in the Indian media, where one side is continuously egging the government to go arrest people from the other side, to take action, branding them as ‘anti-national.’”

She highlighted October’s police raid on the news website NewsClick, which has been critical of the BJP, and the arrest of its editor Prabir Purkayastha, who remains behind bars on terrorism charges for allegedly receiving money from China.

“We saw many Indian TV anchors go on air and ask for the arrest of the editor Prabir. They continue to call him all kinds of names,” said Rajendran, as she called for more solidarity among journalists and newsrooms.

Online harassment

Ismat Ara was among 20 Muslim women journalists whose pictures and personal information were shared for a virtual “auction” in 2022 by an online app called Bulli Bai, a derogatory term to describe Muslim women. Ara filed a police complaint which led to the arrest of the app’s creators.

Trolling is still a regular occurrence for her. This month, she posted on social media about being on an election assignment in the northern state of Uttarakhand, which is known for its Hindu pilgrimage sites. One of the comments on X, formerly known as Twitter, said, “In future you will have to apply for visa to visit these places in India.”

Since she was chased by a mob at the Delhi riots, Ara said she usually hides her Muslim identity while reporting.

“I think it helps not to be visibly Muslim,” she said, adding that she removed a picture of herself in a hijab on X after a BJP aide asked for her handle to check for “negative stories.” 

Some journalists at The News Minute receive abusive comments whenever they publish stories, Rajendran said.

“People have disturbed sleep patterns, they lose their confidence, they self-censor themselves, they do not want to tweet out stories,” she said, urging journalists to talk about their experiences with friends and colleagues.

Online censorship

In recent years, India has become a world leader in imposing internet shutdowns, according to the digital rights group Access Now. 

Government requests to platforms like X, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, to take down or block content and handles in India for defamation, impersonation, privacy and security, or inflammatory content have increased multifold in the last few years. From October to December 2023, India had the most video takedowns globally with over 2 million YouTube videos removed. 

In early April, YouTube blocked prominent Hindi language news channels Bolta Hindustan and National Dastak without explanation. 

On Tuesday, X said it had blocked several posts by politicians and parties, which made unverified claims about their opponents, in compliance with orders from the Election Commission of India, while noting that “we disagree with these actions” on freedom of expression grounds. 

Digital rights experts have criticized India for failing to respect a 2015 Supreme Court order to provide an outlet that has allegedly produced offensive content with a copy of the blocking order and an opportunity to be heard by a government committee before taking action.

Device hacking 

Digital security is another growing concern. After The News Minute was raided by the income tax department, Rajendran said she organized a training for her staff on how to respond if an agency wants to take your device or arrest you.

Siddharth Varadarajan, editor of The Wire news website, has been repeatedly targeted with Pegasus spyware. 

“We need to fight for our right to work as journalists without this sort of intrusive, illegal surveillance,” he told CPJ. “A first step is to educate ourselves and devise technologically sound strategies to cope with surveillance.” 

In the wake of the revelations, Varadarajan’s devices were analyzed by a committee established by the Supreme Court but its findings have not been made public. 

“Until recently, journalists were primarily trained to uncover and disseminate the truth,” Rajendran concluded. 

“In today’s landscape, it is equally vital to educate both aspiring journalists and seasoned professionals on methods to safeguard themselves, their sources, and their personal devices.”

B.P. Gopalika and Naresh Kumar, chief secretaries of the states of West Bengal, and Delhi, respectively, did not respond to CPJ’s emails seeking comment on authorities’ efforts to protect journalists during the election.

Secretary of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Sanjay Jaju did not respond to CPJ’s email seeking comment on social media censorship. 

Secretary of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology S. Krishnan did not respond to CPJ’s email seeking comment on the allegations of hacking.

CPJ’s India Election Safety Kit is available in English, हिंदी, ಕನ್ನಡ, தமிழ் and বাংলা

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Kunal Majumder/CPJ India Representative.

On February 27, Sultan was released from jail in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh and on February 29 he reached his home in Srinagar, the largest city in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir, some 1,500 kilometers (932 miles) further north, according to multiple news reports and a local journalist familiar with the case, who spoke to CPJ on the condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisal.

When Sultan responded later that day to a summons to appear at Srinagar’s Rainawari police station for questioning on a separate matter, he was re-arrested, those sources said, in addition to Sultan’s lawyer Adil Pandit, who spoke to CPJ.

On March 1, Sultan was presented at a local court in Srinagar, which ordered that he remain in police custody pending investigation until March 5, Pandit said, adding that he was applying for bail on behalf of his client.

Sultan, an assistant editor and reporter with the defunct monthly magazine Kashmir Narrator, was first arrested in Srinagar in August 2018 and accused of “harbouring known militants” in a case marred by procedural delays and evidentiary irregularities. The previous month, Sultan published a cover story on slain Kashmiri militant Burhan Wani. CPJ and its partner organizations repeatedly called for Sultan’s release.

“The re-arrest of Kashmiri journalist Aasif Sultan on old charges, days after his release from five and a half years of arbitrary detention, raises concern that he has again been targeted because of his journalism,” said Carlos Martinez de la Serna, CPJ’s program director. “We call on the Indian government to immediately end its media crackdown in Kashmir and to ensure that Sultan and other Kashmiri journalists do not spend another day behind bars for peacefully exercising their right to freedom of expression.”

Sultan’s re-arrest on February 29 was related to a 2019 police first information report—a document opening an investigation—regarding riots in Srinagar Central Jail, where Sultan was detained at the time, Pandit told CPJ. Authorities filed a chargesheet in the case against Sultan and 20 others under sections of the penal code and anti-terror Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, Pandit said, adding that his client was not guilty.

It is not the first time that Sultan has been re-arrested.

On April 5, 2022, he was granted bail by a special court, which said that the state had failed to provide evidence linking him to any militant organization. But he was not released. Authorities held Sultan in a Srinagar police station, re-arrested him under the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act (PSA) on April 10, and transferred him to jail in Uttar Pradesh. The law allows for preventive detention for up to two years without trial.

On December 11, 2023, the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir quashed the PSA case, calling Sultan’s detention “illegal and unsustainable.” However, Sultan was not released until February 27 because he required security clearance from the Jammu and Kashmir administration to return home, Pandit said.

Similarly, the Jammu and Kashmir High Court quashed a PSA order against journalist Sajad Gul in November, but he remains jailed in relation to a separate case.

R.R. Swain, Director General of Police of Jammu and Kashmir, did not immediately respond to CPJ’s emailed request for comment on Sultan’s re-arrest.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

“Since Prime Minister Modi came to power in 2014, there has been an increasing crackdown on India’s media,” said CPJ President Jodie Ginsberg. “Journalists critical of the government and the BJP party have been jailed, harassed, and surveilled in retaliation for their work. 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.”

On Wednesday, June 14, CPJ convened an online panel, “India’s Press Freedom Crisis,” with opening remarks and moderation by Ginsberg alongside panelists Geeta Seshu, founding editor of the Free Speech Collective watchdog group; Anuradha Bhasin, executive editor of the Kashmir Times newspaper; and Shahina K.K., senior editor for Outlook magazine.

The panelists discussed the deterioration of press freedom over the last decade, with Seshu detailing the rise in censorship and “vicious” attacks on the media, while Shahina shared her ongoing battle to fight terrorism charges filed nearly 13 years ago by the Karnataka state government, then led by Modi’s BJP party, in retaliation for her investigative reporting.

Bhasin spoke about the “effective silence” that Kashmiri journalists have dealt with since the Modi government unilaterally revoked Jammu and Kashmir’s special autonomy status in 2019, with multiple cases of reporters being detained and interrogated.

CPJ calls on the U.S. government to urge India to act on the following press freedom violations:

• The ongoing detention of six journalists–Aasif Sultan, Gautam Navlakha, Sajad Gul, Fahad Shah, Rupesh Kumar Singh, and Irfan Mehraj–in retaliation for their work. All have been targeted under draconian security laws. Shah faces trial on spurious terrorism charges in relation to a 2011 article published by his online magazine The Kashmir Walla. The other five journalists remain in pretrial detention.

• The harassment of the domestic and foreign media, including routine raids and retaliatory income tax investigations launched into critical news outlets. In February, income tax authorities raided the BBC’s offices in Delhi and Mumbai after the government censored a critical documentary on Modi by the broadcaster. Foreign correspondents say they have faced increasing visa uncertainties, restricted access to several areas of the country, including Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir, and even threats of deportation in retaliation for critical reporting in recent years.

• The media crackdown in Kashmir, including the use of preventative detention, terrorism and criminal cases, travel bans, raids, and summons for questioning in retaliation for journalists’ work. In 2020, the government enacted a stringent media policy outlining powers for authorities to accredit the media, distribute government advertisements, and determine what constitutes “fake news.”

• Ongoing impunity in cases of killed journalists. At least 62 journalists have been killed in India in connection with their work since 1992. India ranked 11th on CPJ’s 2022 impunity index, with unsolved cases of at least 20 journalists killed in retaliation for their work from September 1, 2012, to August 31, 2022.

• Digital media restrictions, including using the IT Rules, 2021, to censor critical journalism, including the BBC documentary on Modi. India led the world in internet shutdowns for the fifth year in 2022, impeding press freedom and the ability of journalists to work freely.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

“The dialogue should be an opportunity for the EU to raise press freedom abuses with the Indian government, led by the Hindu right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). However, statements from previous dialogues have been limited in scope,” said Tom Gibson, CPJ’s EU representative.

“As India seeks to gloss over its abysmal press freedom record, the EU must unequivocally condemn its harsh crackdown on journalists and media organizations, and make clear, verifiable demands, including the release of arbitrarily detained journalists,” added Gibson. “The EU should question what type of relationship it is building if critical journalists in India and Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir cannot report without risking harassment, detention, abuse, or even death.” 

Gibson also called on the EU to press India for action on the following press freedom violations and attacks on journalists documented by CPJ:

• Authorities’ use of the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act, a preventive detention law, to keep Kashmiri journalists Aasif Sultan, Fahad Shah, and Sajad Gul behind bars after they were granted court-ordered bail in separate cases.

• The ongoing pretrial detention of Gautam Navlakha, Anand Teltumbde, Siddique Kappan, and Manan Dar under India’s draconian anti-terror Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.  Navlakha and Teltumbde are detained in “anda” (“egg”) cells, akin to solitary confinement, according to news reports.

• Indian authorities’ use of politically motivated charges to imprison journalists and its denunciation of critical journalists as attackers of traditional Hindu values. In June 2022, Delhi police arrested outspoken Muslim journalist Mohammed Zubair, himself an advocate against hate speech and disinformation, for a satirical tweet. On July 12, 2022, the Uttar Pradesh police formed a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe six cases registered against Zubair in the state, according to news reports.

• Full investigation into the deaths of five journalists killed in India because of their work in 2021 and prosecution of anyone implicated in the killings.

There are particular risks facing journalists from minority communities, including Muslims, when reporting on sectarian discrimination and violence. At least 20 female Muslim journalists were listed “for sale” in the notorious Bulli (derogatory slang for Muslim women) Bai (a female servant) app, according to CPJ research. A January 2022 investigation by The Wire found that female journalists and others were victims of online abuse through Tek Fog, an app said to be used as a propaganda tool by BJP-affiliated operatives.

CPJ’s 2021 annual prison census found that seven journalists were detained in India and Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir as of December 1, 2021, setting the country’s record for the highest number of detained journalists since at least 1992.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Erik Crouch.

Reporting in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir has become so difficult that dozens of Kashmiri journalists have fled the valley in recent months, fearing they will be the government’s next targets, three journalists told CPJ on the condition of anonymity due to fear of reprisal.  Gul, a journalism student and trainee reporter at the independent online news portal The Kashmir Walla who was initially arrested for tweeting a video of a protest, is one of three journalists targeted amid the recent Public Safety Act crackdown.

Police have since re-arrested two other journalists — Fahad Shah, founder and editor of The Kashmir Walla, and Aasif Sultan, a journalist with the independent monthly magazine Kashmir Narrator — under the law after they were granted court-ordered bail in separate cases.

The re-arrests follow the government shutdown of the Kashmir Press Club, the largest elected trade body representing the region’s journalists, in January.

The following month, an executive magistrate issued an arrest warrant for Gowhar Geelani, a prominent Kashmiri writer and commentator, on grounds of preventative detention to keep the peace. A self-identified “civil society” group plastered “wanted” posters in south Kashmir’s Pulwama district offering a reward for information on Geelani, who has gone underground, a local correspondent for a news magazine, who is familiar with his case, told CPJ on the condition of anonymity due to fear of reprisal.

On April 17, officials with the newly created State Investigation Agency (SIA), tasked with investigating terrorism cases, arrested research scholar Abdul Aala Fazili for an opinion article published in The Kashmir Walla in 2011.

The arrests and harassment of Kashmiri journalists follow the resurgence of the Hindu right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2014, following the election of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Intent on converting India from a secular democracy to a Hindu rashtra (nation), the BJP-led government has worked to extend its dominance over Muslim-majority Kashmir through heavy militarization as well as arbitrary detentions and crackdowns on freedom of expression. By targeting the local press, the government seeks to tighten its control over the narrative surrounding its human rights abuses in Kashmir, two of the journalists who requested anonymity told CPJ.

Sambit Patra and Syed Zafar Islam, national spokespeople for the BJP, did not respond to CPJ’s requests for comment sent via messaging app. Dilbag Singh, director-general of the Jammu and Kashmir police, also did not respond to requests sent via messaging app. The offices of Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha and India’s Home Ministry, which oversees the Jammu and Kashmir administration, did not respond to emailed requests for comment.

In 2017, the government began targeting Kashmiri journalists under the anti-terror Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), which carries harsh bail provisions. At age 22, photojournalist Kamran Yousuf was the first Kashmiri journalist detained under the law, from September 2017 until March 2018. In March 2022, a court finally discharged him of the UAPA terror funding allegation due to lack of evidence.

Sultan was also arrested under the UAPA, in August 2018, after he published an article in the Kashmir Narrator on Burhan Wani, leader of the armed Hizbul Mujahideen group, whose killing by Indian security forces in 2016 sparked massive anti-government protests. The case against Sultan, who is accused of “harboring known terrorists,” has been marred by procedural delays and evidentiary irregularities.

Sultan was finally granted bail in the UAPA case on April 5, but he was held at a police station in Srinagar for five days without legal basis before being re-arrested under the Public Safety Act. He is now detained in a jail in Uttar Pradesh, which is experiencing a massive heat wave.

After the BJP-led government’s unilateral revocation of Jammu and Kashmir’s special autonomy status in August 2019, Kashmiri journalists faced significant obstacles when authorities imposed an internet shutdown and communications blackout. 4G access was not officially restored until February 2021. Authorities have shut down the internet in various areas of Kashmir at least 25 times this year, according to the digital blackout monitoring website InternetShutdown.in.

Meanwhile, legal harassment, threats, physical attacks, and raids on the homes of journalists and their family members have become the new norm. In 2020, the government introduced a stringent media policy that presented new guidelines on media accreditation and empowered the government to determine what constitutes “fake news.”

Online archives of local newspapers are disappearing as well, in what freelance journalist Aakash Hassan called an “erasure of memory” in a phone interview. While some archives were deleted because publications did not pay maintenance fees, others were removed in response to government pressure, two of the journalists who requested anonymity told CPJ.

Still, the use of the Public Safety Act to keep the three journalists locked up marks a disturbing new trend. While authorities have repeatedly used the law against Kashmiri human rights defenders and political leaders, CPJ has documented only one prior use against a journalist: Qazi Shibli, editor of the independent news website The Kashmiriyat, who was detained for nine months without trial from July 2019 to April 2020.

“The PSA was slapped against [Gul] only to keep him in jail after the court granted him bail,” Shah told The Wire news website prior to his own arrest just weeks later. Police first arrested Shah on February 4, on accusations of sedition and violating the UAPA. He was then trapped in a cycle of arrest, court-ordered bail, and re-arrest involving years-old criminal cases in which The Kashmir Walla and other journalists associated with the outlet, though not Shah, had been accused. On March 14, police arrested Shah for the fourth time in 40 days, under the Public Safety Act. He has since been moved to Kupwara district jail, about 80 miles from his family.

On April 17, SIA officials and police raided Shah’s home and the office of The Kashmir Walla. The police report against Fazili led to the opening of an additional terrorism investigation into the unnamed editor of The Kashmir Walla and an unspecified number of other unnamed people associated with the news site.

Since its founding in 2009, the outlet had shut down three times due to lack of funding, interim editor Yashraj Sharma told CPJ in a phone interview. “The economic situation of independent media in Kashmir was always disappointing. Now, while we cling to hope of a speedy judicial process, we face a really uncertain future ahead of us,” Sharma said.

Journalists who spoke to CPJ denounced the recent use of the Public Safety Act, particularly the vague arguments given in the government’s detention orders, which CPJ reviewed. Authorities argued that extending Gul’s detention was necessary because he would otherwise be released on court-ordered bail.

The orders against Shah and Sultan deploy eerily similar arguments, accusing the journalists of “having a radical ideology right from your childhood,” “circulating fake news,” and “working against the ethics of journalism.” And although the police asserted that Sultan was not arrested in relation to his journalism in a response posted on Twitter to CPJ’s August 2020 advertisement on Sultan’s detention in The Washington Post, the detention order specifically cites his article on Burhan Wani.

“Even if you don’t commit any crime, they are sending the message that they can jail you anytime without any real case,” a freelance Kashmiri journalist told CPJ on condition of anonymity due to fear of reprisal.

The Kashmiri media “has reached a breaking point, where journalists are wondering whether it’s worth it to report from Kashmir,” said the journalist, who recently fled the valley due to fear of government retaliation. While hoping to continue his work or studies abroad, the journalist said he has been informed by police sources that he is on a government no-fly list.

About 22 Kashmiri journalists appeared on the no-fly list as of September 2021, according to The Wire. This is in line with the accounts shared with CPJ by numerous Kashmiri journalists, who have reported significant difficulties in traveling abroad, particularly to attend panels and award functions.

The persecution of Shah and Geelani, who have contributed to foreign-based media, demonstrates that “being associated with foreign outlets doesn’t guarantee you a degree of protection anymore,” said Raqib Hameed Naik, an independent multimedia journalist from Kashmir. After Hameed Naik fled abroad in 2020 following repeated intimidation by law enforcement, his family members in Kashmir have continued to face harassment and questions about his reporting, social media posts, and plans to return, he said.

Meanwhile, self-censorship prevails among Kashmiri journalists, with local newspapers refraining from reporting on the recent arrests due to fear of reprisal and cuts to government-funded advertisements, two of the journalists who requested anonymity told CPJ. Many write without bylines.

“Everyone is grappling with the single question,” Hameed Naik said. “Who is next on the list?”

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Sonali Dhawan.

The statement calls on authorities to release all journalists detained for their work, including Fahad Shah, Sajad Gul, and Aasif Sultan, who were granted bail but then re-arrested this year under the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act, a preventative detention law. The groups also expressed concern about the use of spurious terrorism and sedition charges against members of the press including journalist Siddique Kappan, who has been detained since October 2020.

The statement notes that journalists belonging to minority communities are particularly vulnerable to harassment and retaliation. In January, a demeaning fake auction app was taken offline after it listed at least 20 female Muslim journalists for “sale,” all of whom covered the BJP government’s policies affecting religious minorities.

The statement also expresses concern about the use of Pegasus spyware to monitor journalists’ digital communications. The Pegasus Project has identified more than 40 Indian journalists who appeared on a leaked list of potential targets for surveillance by the spyware, which is produced by the Israeli company NSO Group. In October 2021, the Supreme Court of India ordered a “thorough inquiry” on the government’s alleged use of Pegasus against journalists and others.

Read the statement here.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Erik Crouch.

On Sunday, April 10, authorities in Jammu and Kashmir re-arrested Sultan, a journalist with the monthly magazine Kashmir Narrator, under the 1978 Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act days after he was granted bail in a separate case, according to various news reports and Sultan’s lawyer, Adil Pandit, who spoke to CPJ by phone.

The Public Safety Act allows for suspects to be held for up to two years in preventative detention without trial, according to those sources. Pandit told CPJ that the grounds for Sultan’s detention under the Public Safety Act were unclear, and he was expecting a copy of the detention order from an executive district magistrate soon.

“We urge police in Jammu and Kashmir to respect the decision of the judiciary, which has found no evidence to justify holding journalist Aasif Sultan in jail,” said Steven Butler, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator, in Washington, D.C. “Sultan should be released at once, having already spent over three and a half years in jail without being convicted of any crime, and authorities must cease weaponizing preventative detention and anti-terror laws against journalists to muzzle their work.”

Police arrested Sultan in August 2018 for allegedly harboring terrorists in violation of the anti-terror Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, shortly after he published an article about Burhan Wani, leader of the armed Hizbul Mujahideen group, who was killed by Indian authorities in 2016, sparking anti-government protests in Kashmir. 

On April 5, 2022, a special court of the National Investigation Agency, which handles terror-related cases, granted Sultan bail in that case, claiming that the state had failed to provide evidence linking him to any militant organization, Pandit told CPJ.

However, authorities kept Sultan at the Batamaloo Police Station in Srinagar, and then re-arrested him under the Public Safety Act, Pandit said, adding that authorities said they would move the journalist to Jammu’s Kot Bhalwal jail, about 200 miles from Srinagar.

​​Sultan’s father, Mohammad Sultan, told CPJ by phone that, before he was re-arrested, authorities at the Batamaloo Police Station insisted that the journalist would be released soon.

In January, police similarly re-arrested Sajad Gul, a journalism student and trainee reporter at the online news portal The Kashmir Walla, under the Public Safety Act after he was granted bail in a separate criminal conspiracy case, according to news reports. On March 14, police re-arrested Fahad Shah, editor of The Kashmir Walla, also under that act, after he was granted bail in a number of separate criminal and anti-terror cases, according to a statement by his outlet.

In August 2020, CPJ joined nearly 400 journalists and civil society members in calling on Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to release Sultan. In February 2022, CPJ joined 57 press freedom organizations, rights groups, and publications in calling on the lieutenant governor of Jammu and Kashmir to release all arbitrarily detained journalists, including Shah, Gul, Sultan, and freelance photojournalist Manan Dar.

Dilbag Singh, the director-general of the Jammu and Kashmir police, did not immediately respond to CPJ’s request for comment sent via messaging app.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Erik Crouch.