The eighth Yamin Hazarika Woman of Substance Award 2022 will be conferred on noted Journalist and Activist, Patricia Mukhim.

The award celebrates the life of the iconic woman called Yamin Hazarika, a 1977-batch DANIPS officer. This petite Assamese lady had shattered many glass ceilings and her extraordinary life ignited many young minds. She had served the nation as DCP, Delhi Police and did a short stint with the UN Peacekeeping Force in Bosnia before she passed away at the young age of 43 in 1999.

The awardee, Patricia Mukhim is currently the editor of Meghalaya’s oldest and largest selling English language daily, The Shillong Times. She is a former member of the National Security Advisory Board (NSAB) and former member governing board of Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC).

Mukhim was a teacher for over two decades before stepping in as Editor, The Shillong Times in 2008. She is a gender activist and has written extensively on issues relating to India’s North East. She has been conferred several journalistic awards and the Padmashree in 2000. Mukhim has been an invited speaker at national and international forums and continues to engage actively as a socio- political analyst.

Currently, she is also a member of the environment advisory board of the National Human Rights Commission. She has also authored a book” Waiting for an Equal World” published by Martin Luther Christian University.

This story first appeared in Institute of Commonwealth Studies

By Nupur Basu
(Independent journalist, award winning documentary film maker, and educator from India.)

On World Press Freedom Day, May 3, 2022, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) came out with a numbing statistic on India. It ranked India at 150 out of 180 countries in its World Press Freedom Index, a 17 point fall from its ranking in 2016, just six years back.

The report said : “The violence against journalists, the politically partisan media and the concentration of media ownership all demonstrate that press freedom is in crisis in the world’s largest democracy.”

Last year in 2021 the World Press Freedom Index had ranked India at 142 out of 180 countries. At that point it was down 10 points in 10 years. This time it is a whopping 17 points.

The rapid and year on year decline of press freedom in India is not only reflected in these numbers but on Ground Zero. India has become one of the most dangerous countries to report from in the world and that is a major blow to its democracy.

The results of this decline in press freedom are visible in many ways – the vilification of journalists, police cases registered against them, defamation and sedition suits, imprisonment under draconian and bizarre terror laws and even killings. Increasingly journalists speaking truth to power are being intimidated for going against the ruling BJP government’s narrative and its Hindutva nationalist moorings. The ire against journalists  could be on any issue, ranging from corruption in high places, the government’s economic failures, to coverage of gang rapes and mismanagement during the pandemic.

According to Reporters Without Borders there has been a 35% rise in women journalists being sent to prison for their work worldwide. The pressures and mounting challenges to women journalists and editors are becoming ever more acute. Former American President Donald Trump’s favourite phrase for dubbing news critical of him as ‘fake news’…and his infamous description of the media as the ‘enemy of the people’ appears to have found easy acceptance among Indian politicians who have borrowed and used that narrative here in India freely to discredit media professionals who are trying to do truth telling. Indeed, the phrase – fake news – has become the new weapon of those in power to discredit and disown journalists’ stories if they are unflattering to the government.

As one example of this repressive trend: during the first phase of the COVID-pandemic a First Information Report ( FIR ) was filed against Supriya Sharma, Executive Editor of Scroll.in for doing a story from the Prime Minister’s constituency of Varanasi on how COVID relief had not reached a poor family. A case under the SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act was filed against her because a Dalit woman whom she had interviewed in her story turned around and denied the comments in the interview.

Supriya Sharma is a well known, award – winning journalist who travelled to the ground during COVID times and narrated the problem that she witnessed first-hand. There was no mala fide in her reporting. One can only imagine what pressure the Dalit woman had been under to deny her story. The Allahabad High Court had to step in and stop the police from arresting Sharma . Nearly two years on, the case has yet to be closed.

There were other attempts to intimidate journalists across the country in the first and second phase of the pandemic, when the public health situation was critical at times . It was clear that the government was not happy to see any truth telling on the desperate plight of the poor migrant labour after the all-India lockdown in 2020, and the gut -wrenching oxygen scarcity and large number of deaths in the second phase of the pandemic in 2021. The government even tried to introduce forms of censorship on the COVID coverage. But India’s Supreme Court thankfully ruled against it.

In another recent event, two young women journalists who had gone to Tripura to cover an incident of communal conflict were held by the police for allegedly reporting ‘fake news’ and “spreading hatred” with their reporting. Finally the courts had to intervene to grant them bail and the women journalists were released. Similar cases have been reported in other parts of the country, including the nation’s capital, Delhi, where women journalists were detained by the police while they were out covering riots.

In 2021 journalists covering the story of a poor Dalit girl who was gangraped in Hathras, Uttar Pradesh, saw a television woman journalist’s phone messages being monitored and made public as she was trying to get to the root of the story. (During the same coverage a male journalist Siddiq Kappan was arrested on serious terror charges as he was heading to Hathras. Kappan, a journalist from Kerala, has been in prison without bail for the last 18 months. )

We asked Sujata Madhok, General Secretary of the Delhi Union of Journalists (DUJ) what she thought of the growing intimidation of women journalists in India .

“The situation of women in Indian Media is paradoxical. On the one hand there are far more women in the media than ever before, particularly in the big cities. They can be found in every kind of media, newspapers, periodicals, online news media, YouTube and most visibly on television. They have broken many glass ceilings. Yet their very success makes them targets of attack, particularly on social media.  A few media women have had cases filed against them for stories that are inconvenient to the government. (Many male journalists too are facing such cases and some are behind bars.) They are forced to rush to the courts for protection against arrest and prosecution. Such litigation is expensive and harrowing to deal with” Madhok told us.

Recently when the entire Pegasus scam erupted globally, India was very much at the centre of the media story. Pegasus, an Israeli Spyware, was allegedly purchased by the authorities and installed in the mobile phones of several Indian journalists. These included women journalists such as Rohini Singh who was doing stories on alleged corruption of people in the highest echelons of power. As yet there has been no admission from the government as to who actually authorised this surveillance. The matter is pending in court. The government denies having had any hand in the surveillance. But it is a well-known fact that the Israeli company selling this spyware deals only with governments. Attempts to spy on journalists and find out their sources are all contributing factors to India’s ranking in the World Press Freedom Index crashing down to 150.

In effect, all red lines have been breached when it comes to the safety and security of women journalists. This is true globally, and India is no exception. Velvet Revolution, a documentary produced by the International Association of Women in Radio and Television (IAWRT), which I directed along with five other women directors, showcased the increasing vulnerability of women journalists across the world. In the last decade both state and non-state actors seemed to have become trigger-happy with women journalists, in terms of their persecution and even murder. The red line which was there before had proverbially vanished.

In India it was crossed with the gruesome killing of journalist/activist Gauri Lankesh in India’s Information Technology city, Bangalore, on September 5, 2017. Gauri had just put her edition to bed and was returning to her house from work in the evening when masked men riding motor bikes approached her gate and fired seven bullets into her frail and petite frame. She died on the spot.

The trial of Gauri’s assassins is finally scheduled to begin on 27 May, 2022, a delay of four and a half years . Altogether 18 people are on the charge sheet and 17 have been arrested. They all have alleged links with a radical group that claims to propagate Hindutva. The judge has asked for the accused to be presented in court or join online on video from the jail premises.

Even after Gauri’s brutal assassination, online trolls continued to abuse her. The journalist was no more. But the haters continued to spew hate on a corpse. They also proceeded to publish and spread the names of other women journalists who were next in line for elimination. This is a shocking development: these are effectively public death warrants against women journalists and activists being put out on social media in India in the 21st century; yet the social media platforms putting out those hate-filled messages and the government remained mute.

Women journalists are subject to what the United Nations has called “double attacks”. They are threatened both offline and online. Online abuse has reached dizzying proportions. The social media has been weaponised against women journalists and online misogyny has become endemic. Rape, kidnap threats, death threats have become a daily diet on the Twitter handles of women journalists. Indian women journalists such as Arfa Khanum, Rana Ayub, Neha Dixit, Bhasha Singh, Barkha Dutt, Sagarika Ghosh, Saba Naqvi, and Nidhi Razdan are all regularly subjected to vicious attacks on the social media platforms.

In India this online assault has played out in abhorrent ways with women journalists’ photographs morphed with the bodies of porn artists and their telephone numbers and addresses published. The recent cyber crimes in India of #Sulli Deals and #Bulli Bai apps that had put women journalists, particularly Muslim women journalists, up for auction, was another new low in digital crime in India.

Senior journalist and author Saba Naqvi who was targeted wrote on Twitter on January 2, 2022: “Feeling nauseated to get calls from the media saying my name also on the #BulliDeals.Told its still active and any Muslim woman who speaks out is listed. In solidarity with all women out there and the only silver lining is that so many brave young women annoying hate mongers..communal misogyny is a separate mental condition”. @_sabanaqvi

According to Sujata Madhok, General Secretary of the Delhi Union of Journalists (DUJ) – “In a deeply political and polarized country, media women who speak truth to power are considered fair game for any kind of abuse on platforms like Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp and other social media where anonymity emboldens abusers. The ruling BJP’s IT Cell, for instance, unleashes hundreds of trolls on leading women journalists for their comments on political and social developments. Other groups too launch such attacks. However, online anonymity makes it difficult to identify abusers. Predictably, the threats are sexist and often pornographic in nature.  Several women journalists have complained of threats of rape and murder. Some of the worst hate attacks are against minority Muslim women journalists.’’

Despite the outrage against such attacks, there is very little justice for the complainants. Journalist Rana Ayub, a global opinion writer for The Washington Post, has been viciously targeted by trolls in the last decade for her critique of the policies of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The author of the self-published book ; “Gujarat Files –  anatomy of a cover up” which was based on a sting operation during the Gujarat riots when Narendra Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat, Rana has been continuously trolled and abused by right wing Hindutva groups and even by the right wing media. Recently she was the subject of raids by the Enforcement Directorate on charges of “money laundering” of charity funds raised for COVID victims. She has firmly denied these charges. The United Nations condemned the vilification of Rana and Nobel laureate Maria Ressa expressed her solidarity with her.

However, the official harassment continues. In April 2022 Rana was stopped at Mumbai airport and not allowed to board a flight to Italy where she had been invited to deliver a keynote address at the International Journalism Festival 22. She had to secure a court order to be allowed finally to board the flight after a harrowing bureacucratic procedure.

While delivering the keynote address at IJF 22 at Perugia, titled “When the state attacks: journalism under fire in the world’s biggest democracy”, Rana Ayub recounted the mental agony that she had undergone due to this sustained targeting which she said had triggered panic attacks and severe depression.  “Ï have put my entire family in jeopardy with my journalism” she said, adding, however, that she would continue to report from India on all that was going wrong with India’s democracy. “Ï am proud of the fact that the government is scared of my words . I would not like for me to be admired by any political party in India, I would not like that. Over my persecution no political party has stood up in solidarity with me and I take that as a badge of honour. There is an unpopular truth that we must speak and I am here to speak that.”

The Chair, Julie Posetti, Global Director of Research at the International Centre for Journalists (ICFJ) described the attacks on Rana by government agencies and right wing trolls as “extremely reprehensible” and said that all world governments and international media should to take note. “We have been studying Rana’s case and analysed the 8.5 million twitter posts directed against Rana- the hostility, the misogyny, the reprehensible attacks and the ways in which they come torrentially ..”

Posetti told the audience: “We demanded ..because we had to ..that Rana could fly and she did and she is here..and she’s here because she has a compelling reason to be here..she has a compelling and important story to tell ..its a story of state-based harassment and vilification and unfortunately its becoming a very familiar story around the world. But in India, the world’s biggest democracy, it is an essential story for us to hear and ensure we are understanding the myriad challenges when it comes to producing journalism as a freelance woman journalist, who is Muslim and who is attempting to hold power to account in the context of what Rana refers to as potential genocide.”

The UN Secretary General said recently that a survey done by the UN had revealed that 72% of women journalists were being intimidated and harassed for just doing their daily job. Digital media in particular has been the vehicle to heap abuse on women journalists for the truth telling they are doing. But the more they abuse, the more the women are coming out with more and more ground breaking and important stories.

Recently, a top scientist in India said that women journalists were the “real heroines ” of the COVID coverage in the country . They went relentlessly into the field in the most difficult times…to hospitals, morgues, burial grounds and burning ghats. and recorded the hopelessness and human suffering unleashed by the pandemic. They did stories on India’s poor public health infrastructure to deal with a health emergency like a pandemic, the subsequent deaths amounting to over 4 million according to the Lancet . The Indian authorities have rubbished this figure and posted COVID death statistics which are ten times lower than this figure.

Truth telling by women journalists ,in the face of repressive tactics unleashed by governments and other undemocratic forces, comes despite the atmosphere of intimidation, arrests, raids, espionage and death threats . This is indeed good news for journalism.

But two questions beg answering:
Are women journalists in India doing a much more dangerous job than they set out to do?
And will those trolling, criminalising, arresting and killing them get away with impunity?

Clearly institutions like India’s Supreme Court, the Commonwealth, the United Nations must urgently draft stringent laws and punishments and do all in their power to end this unbridled impunity and ensure that persecutors are brought to justice. And media rights organisations in India and around the globe must continue to highlight the erosion of press freedom in India in the coming months.

The Gauri Lankesh murder trial for one will be watched keenly when in begins in the fourth week of May.

(The author of this piece Nupur Basu is a senior journalist and documentary filmmaker)

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This story first appeared in www.livelaw.in

The Supreme Court on Wednesday posted to May 5 for final hearing the petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the offence of sedition under Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code.

A bench comprising the Chief Justice of India NV Ramana, Justice Surya Kant and Justice Hima Kohli was considering two writ petitions filed by Army veteran Major-General SG Vombatkere (Retired) and the Editors Guild of India respectively.

Solicitor General of India Mr.Tushar Mehta submitted that the Central Government’s counter-affidavit is ready and can be filed within two days.

The bench posted the matter for final disposal on May 5, after directing the Centre to file its affidavit by the end of this week. The reply to the affidavit should be filed by next Tuesday. No further adjournment will be granted, the bench said. “We’ll have hearing on May 5th. No adjournment, we’ll have full day hearings”, CJI Ramana said.

Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal appeared for the petitioners. Senior Advocate Sanjay Parikh mentioned a petition filed by Peoples Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) which has not been listed. Senior Advocate Vrinda Grover mentioned a Petition filed by journalists Patricia Mukhim and Anuradha Bhasin, which was also not listed.

The CJI asked if it was necessary to multiply the petitions on the same point of law and delay the matter. Mr. Parikh submitted that he will assist Mr.Sibal in the lead case and will not multiply the submissions.

While issuing notice on the petitions in July 2021, the CJI had orally made critical remarks against the provision.

“Is it still necessary to retain this colonial law which the British used to suppress Gandhi, Tilak etc., even after 75 years of independence?”, the CJI had asked the Attorney General for India.

“If we go see history of charging of this section, the enormous power of this section can be compared to a carpenter being given a saw to make an item, uses it to cut the entire forest instead of a tree. That’s the effect of this provision”, the CJI had said.

In April 2021, another bench led by Justice UU Lalit had issued notice on a petition filed by two journalists challenging Section 124A IPC.

Case Title: S.G. VOMBATKERE vs UNION OF INDIA ( WPC 682/2021) EDITORS GUILD OF INDIA AND ANR. vs UNION OF INDIA AND ORS. (WPC 552/2021)

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This story first appeared in News18

From Golden Retrievers, Dobermans to Labradors, all of Kolkata Police’s dog squad are now beating the heat in style.

Kolkata is reeling under the scorching summer, with temperatures shooting up to 40 degrees. Kolkata Police dogs are, hence, taking special precautions to beat the heat. What have they been doing, you ask? They usually start exercising from 6 to 8:30 in the morning, but now, they just go for walks inside the Agelity Ground of PTS. Around 8:30 am, they take a swim in their special swimming pool. Kolkata Police came up with the special pool last year. This pool is a level apart: it has a special vacuum system to remove the dogs’ fur and equipped with special lights.

The officer who looks after the dogs told News18, “We make them play with balls and water polo. After 12 pm, all of the 47 dogs are accommodated in three air-conditioned rooms till 3 pm.” They eat beef for lunch but from May, they will be given chicken, as prescribed by doctors. After lunch, they are given 100 gm “ghol”, which is a drink made out of curd. Doctors have mandatorily advised it for the dogs. The Kolkata Police has applied for ACs in 55 kennels.

When the dogs are out on duty, they go in two dog carriers which are also air conditioned. More air-conditioned carriers could be on the way. They also have ice coats and drink Glucon D regularly while out. From Golden Retrievers, Dobermans to Labradors, all of Kolkata Police’s dog squad are now beating the heat in style.

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This story first appeared in Times of India Blog

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This story first appeared in Prothom Alo

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This story first appeared in The Daily Star

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This story first appeared in Prothom Alo

By Ahmed Deepto

Drama at the police station

The police at Shahbagh police station throughout the night hedged around the issue of medical treatment for Rozina Islam. Her family asked the police to arrange for her treatment, but nothing was done.

At around 11:00pm the police stated that charges had been brought about against Rozina Islam at the Shahbagh police station. At 11:45pm they briefed the media that a case had been filed against her. They said that she would be kept at the police station overnight.

Journalist Rozina Islam had taken the second dose of the Covid vaccine yesterday, Monday. After the prolonged harassment at the secretariat, she fell physically and mentally ill. She was kept in the room of the officer-in-charge (OC) at the Shahbagh police station. She was given the food, saline and medication brought for her by family.

At around 1:30am word got out that Rozina Islam would be taken to the police’s Detective Branch (DB) office. Police vehicles were even seen being readied at the police station premises. The journalists present there began to protest. The police then said that Rozina Islam would be taken to Dhaka Medical College Hospital for treatment. Her family members objected.

At around 2:30am Rozina Islam’s husband Munirul Islam was allowed to meet her. After meeting with her, he told newspersons that the police wanted to take her to Dhaka Medical College Hospital, but there was risk of coronavirus infection at the emergency department there.

The family’s first demand was that she be taken to a private hospital in the capital city for treatment. The police did not agree. They then requested that she be taken to the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University nearby at the Shahbagh intersection. The officers of Shahbagh police station turned down that request too, even though they had been saying that she required treatment. After that, they did not raise the issue of her medical treatment anymore.

Police misbehavior

In the early hours at around 4:00am, additional deputy commissioner (ADC) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police Ramna division, Harun-Ur-Rashid, asked the newspersons to leave the police station premises. As they were leaving, the ADC told journalist Rozina Islam’s younger sister Sabina Yasmin to leave too. When the journalists protested, the policemen misbehaved with them.

The agitated police officers behaved badly with the journalists there. Journalist Md Zahidul Islam of The Business Standard was making a video of the happenings and his mobile was snatched away from him. The police threatened to send Rozina Islam to jail and also misbehaved with her family, including her sister. They forced them to leave the police station premises.

Shahbagh police station inspector (investigations) Arifur Rahman Sardar also misbehaved with the media persons and Rozina Islam’s relatives. Around 20 or so journalists were present at the time.

When the journalists began protesting, the policemen misbehaved with them again. After the newsmen left the premises, the police returned the mobile phone they had snatched away.

The journalists and Rozina Islam’s relatives then waited on the footpath in front of the police station’s main gate. After some time, ADC Harun-Ur- Rashid came along and said that Shahbagh police station was a key point installation (KPI) and so everyone should remain outside.

He said, “There are other people in the police station, many accused persons, ammunition and important records. It could be a security threat if you remain inside.”

He requested that they don’t keep his misbehavior in mind.

Suddenly in court custody

At 7:45am, Rozina Islam was suddenly taken from the Shahbagh police station to the court of the chief metropolitan magistrate (CMM). Taking anyone at such an early hour to this court is quite unprecedented. Rozina was taken straight to court custody there.

Then just after 11:00am Tuesday, Rozina Islam as brought to the CMM court, where magistrate Mohammad Jasim Uddin rejected the remand appeal after the hearing. The Shahbagh police station had appealed to take her on a five-day remand.

*This report appeared in the print and online edition of Prothom Alo and has been rewritten for the English edition by Ayesha Kabir.

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This story first appeared in Washington Post

By Julhas Alam | AP

DHAKA, Bangladesh — A journalist in Bangladesh known for her strong reporting on official corruption was arrested on charges of violating a colonial-era official secrets act which carries a possible death penalty, authorities said Tuesday.

Rozina Islam, a senior reporter for the leading Prothom Alo newspaper, allegedly used her cellphone without permission to photograph documents related to government negotiations to buy coronavirus vaccines while she waited in the room of an official involved in the process, according to case documents seen by The Associated Press.

Islam is known for reporting on corruption involving the Ministry of Health and others. Several of her recent stories have drawn attention to the millions of dollars spent procuring health equipment to deal with the coronavirus pandemic.

She was held for more than five hours late Monday in the room of a personal assistant of the secretary of the Ministry of Health, said her sister, Sabina Parvin. Her family said she was physically and mentally harassed while being held.

Islam was then handed over to police and faces charges under the Penal Code and Official Secrets Act for alleged theft and photographing of sensitive state documents, said Harun-or-Rashid, an additional deputy commissioner of Dhaka Metropolitan Police.

The charges carry a possible death penalty, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said in a statement.

Maidul Islam Prodhan, a spokesman for the health ministry, said Islam took photos of “important” documents.

“She was also taking away some documents. An additional secretary and a policeman challenged her at the time. Later, the policewomen were called in,” he said.

On Tuesday, she appeared in court, where police sought to hold her for interrogation for five days and defense lawyers sought her release on bail. The magistrate rejected both appeals and sent her to jail until her next court appearance on Thursday, defense lawyer Ehsanul Haque Shomaji said.

Journalists groups in Bangladesh and the CPJ demanded her release.

“We are deeply alarmed that Bangladesh officials detained a journalist and filed a complaint under a draconian colonial-era law that carries ridiculously harsh penalties,” said Aliya Iftikhar, CPJ’s senior Asia researcher.

“Bangladesh police and authorities should recognize that Rozina Islam is a journalist whose work is a public service and should immediately drop the case against her and allow her to go free.”

Earlier this month, the New York-based group Human Rights Watch said Bangladeshi journalists are risking arbitrary arrest, torture and harassment under a widely used Digital Security Act.

It said at least 247 journalists were reportedly subjected to attacks, harassment and intimidation by state officials and others affiliated with the government in 2020. More than 900 cases were filed under the Digital Security Act, with nearly 1,000 people charged and 353 detained, many of them journalists, it said.

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This story first appeared in Prothom Alo

South Asian Women in Media (SAWM), a network of women journalists across South Asia, has expressed deep concern at the harassment and arrest of Prothom Alo’s journalist Rozina Islam.

A SAWM statement on Tuesday demanded her immediate release.

Rozina Islam was detained for over five hours and harassed when she went to the health ministry on Monday to carry out her profession duties. At one point she fell ill. Police took her to Shahbagh police station and filed a case against her under the Official Secrets Act.

“She was performing her duties as a journalist. She had been regularly reporting in depth on corruption in the health and other sectors,” the SAWM statement reads.

Amnesty International, CPJ Asia, Bangladesh Mahila Parishad, Ain o Shalish Kendra also condemned the harassment of Rozina.

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