{"id":331929,"date":"2021-05-08T15:29:41","date_gmt":"2021-05-08T20:59:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/?p=331929"},"modified":"2021-05-08T15:29:41","modified_gmt":"2021-05-08T20:59:41","slug":"its-time-to-press-more-for-press-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/its-time-to-press-more-for-press-freedom\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s time to press more for Press Freedom"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\" India, which ranks at 142 among 180 countries on the World Press Freedom Index, has become \u2018one of the world\u2019s most dangerous countries for journalists and it raises concern, says a latest international report<\/em><\/p>\n

It was in the month of March that the Freedom House report titled \u201cDemocracy Under Siege\u201d claimed that India\u2019s status as a free country has declined to \u201cpartly free\u201d with its score declining to 67 on a scale of 100 and now a month later in April the country has been ranked at 142 among 180 countries and remains as \u201cone of the world\u2019s most dangerous countries\u201d for journalists in the World Press Freedom Index.<\/p>\n

The PIB was quick to issue a rebuttal to the Freedom House Report on India\u2019s declining status as a free country describing the Freedom House report as misleading, incorrect, and misplaced.<\/p>\n

The rebuttal on the issue of \u201cdiscriminatory policies against Muslims and North East Delhi riots\u201d said the government of India treats all its citizens with equality as enshrined under the Constitution of the country and all laws are applied without discrimination.<\/p>\n

About the use of sedition law, it said that Public Order\u2019 and \u2018Police\u2019 are State subjects under India\u2019s federal structure of governance. The responsibility of maintaining law and order, including investigation, registration, and prosecution of crimes, protection of life and property, etc., rests primarily with the concerned State governments.\u00a0 It claimed that the Indian Constitution provides for adequate safeguards under various statutes, including the Protection of Human<\/p>\n

Rights Act for ensuring the protection of human rights. Coming to alleged intimidation of academics and journalists, it claimed that the Constitution provides for freedom of expression under Article 19. Discussion, debate, and dissent are part of Indian democracy. However, the latest index ranks India at 142, same as last year, after it had consistently slid down from 133 in 2016. The report said the coordinated hate campaigns waged on social networks against journalists who dare to speak or write are terrifying and include calls for the journalists concerned to be murdered and the \u201ccampaigns are particularly violent when the targets are women\u201d.<\/p>\n

Further, it said that criminal prosecutions are meanwhile \u201coften used to gag journalists critical of the authorities\u201d with sections for sedition also used. It said, \u201cIn 2020, the government took advantage of the coronavirus crisis to step up its control of news coverage by prosecuting journalists providing information at variance with the official position\u201d. It went on to allege that while the pro-government media pump out a form of propaganda, journalists who dare to criticize the government are branded as \u201canti-state,\u201d \u201canti-national\u201d or even \u201cpro-terrorist\u201d.<\/p>\n

It also stated that this, \u201cexposes\u201d the critical journalists \u201cto public condemnation in the form of extremely violent social media hate campaigns that include calls for them to be killed, especially if they are women\u201d. There was a war on several fronts against reporters and media outlets that don\u2019t toe the official line and the report called the application of \u201cthese methods\u201d as \u201cparticularly instructive\u201d.<\/p>\n

Significantly, the report about India\u2019s status as a democracy and free society titled \u201cFreedom in the World 2021 \u2014 \u00a0Democracy under Siege\u201d had alleged and charged that India \u201cappears to have<\/p>\n

abandoned its potential to serve as a \u00a0global democratic leader\u201d. It said India\u2019s fall \u201cfrom the upper ranks of free nations could have a particularly damaging impact on global democratic standards\u201d. India had been rated as \u201cfree\u201d in Freedom House\u2019s reports for 2018, 2019, and 2020, though its scores on a scale of 100 had declined during this period from 77 to 71. In the latest report, India had a score of 67 out of 100.<\/p>\n

In 1973, Freedom House launched the Freedom in the World report, which assessed the level of freedom in each country and ranked them with a numerical score and declared them as \u201cfree\u201d, \u201cpartly free\u201d or \u201cnot free\u201d. The annual report is perceived as one of the oldest quantitative measures of democracy. The latest report said political rights and civil liberties in India had deteriorated since 2014 because of increased pressure on human rights organizations, rising intimidation of academics and journalists, and a \u201cspate of bigoted attacks, including lynchings, aimed at Muslims\u201d.<\/p>\n

The decline accelerated in 2019, and the central government and its state-level allies \u201ccontinued to crack down on critics\u201d during 2020, while the response to the Covid-19 pandemic \u201cincluded a ham-fisted lockdown that resulted in the dangerous and unplanned displacement of millions of internal migrant workers\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Freedom House cited other incidents and developments that had led to the downgrade for India in the latest report, including the government intensifying its crackdown on protesters opposed to the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and the arrest of dozens of journalists who aired criticism of the official pandemic response.<\/p>\n

Freedom House gave high scores to India for the conduct of free and fair elections but expressed concern over the \u201copaque financing of political parties \u2014 notably through electoral bonds that allow donors to obscure their identities\u201d.\u00a0 It also gave a low score to India over the ability of different segments of the population, including ethnic, racial and religious minorities, to have full political rights and electoral opportunities. The government\u2019s point-wise rebuttal said that many states in India under its federal structure are ruled by parties other than the one at the national level, through an election process that is free and fair and which is conducted by an independent election body. This reflects the working of a vibrant democracy, which gives space to those who hold varying views.<\/p>\n

It said that there is no discriminatory policy against Muslims in India and all citizens are treated with equality. Coming to criticism about the migration of workers, it said that government of \u00a0India allowed State governments to utilize State Disaster Response Fund for purpose of providing food, healthcare, shelter to homeless persons and migrant workers and allowed the engagement of migrant workers in various activities outside containment zones which would allow them a livelihood and also announced a relief package of 1.7 lakh crore which also covered migrant workers.<\/p>\n

About alleged intimidation of journalists, it claimed that the Indian Constitution provides for freedom of expression under Article 19 and the government attaches the highest importance to the safety and security of all residents of the country, including journalists. The Government of India has issued a special advisory to States and Union Territories on the safety of journalists requesting them to strictly enforce the law to ensure the safety and security of media persons. About internet shutdowns, it said that temporary suspension of the telecom services, including internet, are governed under the provisions of the Temporary Suspension of Telecom Services (Public Emergency or Public Safety) Rules and these are temporary suspensions that need authorization.<\/p>\n

It should be no consolation that the same report was extremely critical of China, describing it as the \u201cworld\u2019s most populous dictatorship\u201d and saying the \u201cmalign influence of the regime\u201d in Beijing was \u201cespecially profound in 2020\u201d. China \u201cramped up its global disinformation and censorship campaign to counter the fallout from its cover-up of the initial coronavirus outbreak, which severely hampered a rapid global response in the pandemic\u2019s early days\u201d, the report said. Beijing\u2019s efforts \u201cfeatured increased meddling in the domestic political discourse of foreign democracies, transnational extensions of rights abuses common in mainland China, and the demolition of Hong Kong\u2019s liberties and legal autonomy\u201d.<\/p>\n

tehelkaletters@gmail.com<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

India, which ranks at 142 among 180 countries on the World Press Freedom Index, has become \u2018one of the world\u2019s most dangerous countries for journalists and it raises concern, says a latest international report It was in the month of March that the Freedom House report titled \u201cDemocracy Under Siege\u201d claimed that India\u2019s status as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":331933,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23],"tags":[14206,14205],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331929"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=331929"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331929\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":331938,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331929\/revisions\/331938"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/331933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}