Thursday, 28 November 2024
Thursday, 28 November 2024
Two instances of police action against independent journalists that came to light on Wednesday prove democratic India and theocratic Pakistan are joined at the hips when it comes to criminalising speaking up against the ruling dispensation.
In both instances, the two journalists – one in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh and the other in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad – have been charged with actions against the nation.
The Uttar Pradesh police have reportedly filed an affidavit in Allahabad high court alleging that journalist and fact-checker Mohammed Zubair committed an offence that endangered the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India.
The Uttar Pradesh police are investigating Zubair for a post on X (Twitter before Elon Musk took over) highlighting “hate speech by Yati Narsinghanand, a person facing multiple FIRs for his communal hate speeches,” according to a statement released by Pratik Sinha, who cofounded the fact-checking website Alt News with Zubair.
“The section invoked is BNS 152 (Section 152 of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita), a new avatar of the colonial-era sedition law,” the statement said.
Zubair, Sinha and Alt News have a reputation of fact-checking propaganda by right-wing handles and are known critics of the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday night in Islamabad – around 1,251 km from Allahabad – television host Matiullah Jan, a known critic of the Pakistan military’s influence in that country’s politics, was picked up from the streets of Islamabad and charged with terrorism.
Human rights lawyer Imaan Mazari-Hazir, representing Jan, has alleged the journalist has gone missing since Wednesday night.
Before his arrest Jan, who runs a YouTube channel, had reportedly in his show read hospital records that gave the figures of casualties during police action on a march by supporters of former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan.
In his broadcast, Jan had blown holes in the government’s denial on use of ammunition to curb the protests.
The Pakistan government had claimed that four security officers were killed following a march by supporters of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) where they had stormed into the national capital.
According to a Reuters report, Jan along with his cameraman Saqib Bashir were picked up by men in black uniform from the parking area of Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), blindfolded and bundled into a car.
Bashir was released after a few hours, the report said.
In another news agency report, by PTI, the police in Islamabad were reported as saying that they were unaware of Jan’s identity when he was arrested following an alleged attempt to run over security personnel at the Sector E-9 checkpoint that left a constable injured.
Jan has also been accused of getting down the car, when it was stopped forcibly, and snatching a police weapon to assault another on-duty officer. The police claimed to have recovered 246 g of crystal methamphetamine, a narcotic drug that goes by the street name of ‘ice’.
Lawyer Imaan said the charges against Jan were “no less than a joke”.
“There is not an iota of truth in these charges,” she said.
According to Imaan, on hearing that the journalist was detained at Islamabad’s Margalla police station, she went there to look for him and could enter only after pleading for hours with the cops.
“After pleading with police at Margalla Police Station to allow us access to our client Matiullah Jan, we were finally allowed in,” Imaan said on X, adding that she had checked the lock-up herself, searching for her client. “People locked up inside confirmed to me that right before we came, the police took Matiullah Jan. He is missing.”
Pakistani television channel anchor Munizae Jahangir said Jan was “reporting from hospitals on those injured and killed from bullet wounds at the PTI [Imran’s party] protest and [it] seems that’s why he has been arrested for his journalistic work”.
A post on Jan’s X account, apparently posted by his son, read: “Matiullah Jan has been abducted from the parking of Pims tonight (Wednesday night) around 11 pm by unmarked abductors in an unmarked vehicle. This follows [Jan’s] courageous coverage of the protests in Islamabad.”
Jan’s arrest has sparked nationwide outrage among the media fraternity.
The Islamabad Crime Reporters Association (ICRA) has strongly condemned Jan’s arrest and demanded his immediate release.
“Baseless cases filed to stop journalists from performing their duties will not be tolerated. If justice is not served, the association will prepare a future course of action,” said Qamar ul Munawar, the ICRA president.
Karachi-based lawyer M Jibran Nasir wrote on X that Jan’s arrest had exposed a “pathetic, corrupt and malicious” system.
“A renowned journalist Matiullah Jan who was reporting round the clock on the PTI protest which the Establishment wanted to censor was first abducted and then later under public pressure shown under arrest in a FIR which should embarrass IG Islamabad enough to resign if he had an iota of shame,” wrote Nasir.
“Jan had initially reported the counter version of Rangers officials getting crushed under their own vehicle while escaping. He has now been punished by being accused of trying to run over security personnel with his car, over powering LEAs and snatching their SMG and pointing it at them and being in possession and under the influence of ICE (crystal meth). I would not be surprised if he even managed his blood and urine samples to perpetuate their lies. Neither the PM has any worth nor IG nor any Commissioner. All have reduced themselves to touts of Establishment and their offices to a tool to inflict violence and abuse.”
Across the border in India, the BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh government's latest attack on the fact-checker has also sparked protests.
“Calling out hate speech is a service; making hate speeches is a crime. Going to the police and courts has proven pointless for justice or support. If this is an individual fight, know that Zubair (who goes by the X handle zoo_bear) is not alone. Every honest journalist stands firmly in solidarity with him,” wrote independent journalist Tanushree Pandey.
Media association DIGIPUB also condemned the targeting of Zubair.
“DIGIPUB condemns the Uttar Pradesh police's escalating harassment of Mohammad Zubair, a fact checker and co-founder of our member organisation, Alt News, by filing yet another baseless case against him on 7 October and close to two months later accusing him of "endangering the sovereignty and unity of India" through his social media posts,” it said.
“This most recent FIR relates to a social media post by Zubair highlighting the hate speeches made by a well-known hate monger in UP, Yati Narsinghananad, who is facing multiple cases for his hate speeches targeting Muslims, including his most recent one on 29 September,” it added.
“These allegations are unfounded and this is a vindictive and unreasonable over-reach by agencies of the state. It does as much damage to the credibility of the agency involved as it does to democratic principles,” it said.
“The fact that grave sections like 152 and Section 66 of the Information Technology Act were invoked almost two months after the FIR was registered based on a complaint from a private citizen shows that the escalating police action is deliberate and vindictive.”
DIGIPUB is a collective of more than 90 digital outlets across the country.
Its statement pointed out: “While granting Zubair bail in July 2022 for six cases filed against him in UP, the Supreme Court notably did not restrict the fact checker from continuing his work, saying, "How can the court restrain a journalist from tweeting?"”
Actor Prakash Raj, a vocal critic of the ruling party in India, has also expressed solidarity with the hounded journalist.
Zubair had first shot into the internet limelight as the founder of a parody page that lampooned extreme-Hindutva handles in general and Subramanian Swamy in particular. Later, he started Alt News along with activist Pratik Sinha, who is the son of the late Gujarat-based human rights activist and lawyer Mukul Sinha.
In October last year, Uttar Pradesh had filed an FIR against him for sharing the video of a headmistress ordering children to slap a Muslim child in her school.
Zubair was accused of revealing the boy’s identity.
The cases against Matiullah Jan and Zubair show why Pakistan is ranked 152 out of 180 countries in the press freedom index and India is even lower, at 159, in the latest edition of the list published annually by the international organisation Reporters Without Borders.
