*Follow the line or be booked for sedition, that is the clear message of the Indian state while dealing with journalists in Kashmir. From cutting advertisements for daily newspapers and choking their finances, to banning news portals online, to detaining and physically torturing journalists, the Government of India has left no stone unturned to not let truth be spoken to the powers that be.
“The curve of criticism was completely flattened on 5 August 2019, when New Delhi locked down Kashmir and snapped all its communications as it abrogated the region’s limited autonomy and statehood”, writes Rayan Naqash, an independent journalist. Many news portals post 5th August had to shut down just because of the restrictions they were put under, making it difficult to get their work done; all of this while Indian national media were sending their correspondents to report from 'the ground'. Not a surprise that many such ground reports were pure white lies and a smokescreen to the reality.
"Whenever a Kashmiri is caught, the Indian mainstream media labels them a terrorist. When I was imprisoned, the media declared that a traitor had been captured. The media presents a social activist or a political activist or a human rights activist as a terrorist."
On the World Press Freedom Day, let's remember media workers & journalists who were killed in Jammu & Kashmir since 1990:
August 29, 1994, Ghulam Muhammad Lone, killed in Kangan
September 10, 1995, Mushtaq Ali, killed in Srinagar
April 10, 1996, Ghulam Rasool Sheikh, killed in Pampore
January 01, 1997, Altaf Ahmed Faktoo, killed in Srinagar
March 16, 1997, Saidan Shafi, killed in Srinagar
January 31, 2003, Parvaz Mohammed Sultan, killed in Srinagar
April 20, 2004, Aasia Jeelani, killed in Lolab, Kupwara
May 11, 2008, Ashok Sodhi, killed in Samba
August 13, 2008, Javed Ahmed Mir, killed in Srinagar
June 14, 2018, Shujaat Bukhari, killed in Srinagar
Data compiled by Committee to Protect Journalists, New York.
The outrage at the so-called 'weaponizing of social media' is quite ridiculous, especially coming from a government that has used all forms of media and all tools of propaganda to justify its occupation of Kashmir. Maybe the outrage is at the fact that social media allows the Kashmiris to fight back against the onslaught of the much more powerful Indian state which had a tight grip on all traditional forms of media and thus on all narratives emanating from Kashmir. Social media, by virtue of it being more accessible, makes it easier to broadcast local narratives, a quality that has annoyed tyrannical governments all over the world.
Source: 1) https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10158729678918352&id=675103351
2) https://thekashmirwalla.com/2020/05/journalism-under-jackboot-patrolling-internet/-
#KashmirCaged
#StandWithKashmir
#EndOccupation
#ReleasePoliticalPrisoners
#InternetFreedom
https://twitter.com/pipfpdindia/status/1257009800040202240?s=19
