Modi’s Nationalism Clamps Down Press Freedom in India Says RSF Report

Reporters Sans Frontières or Reporters Without Borders' (RSF) annual report of violence and abuse against journalists worldwide, has pointed out that 65 journalists were killed in 2017, including four in India. Though RSF, the France-based media watchdog, observed a fall in the death toll from last year’s 79, the number of women journalists killed in 2017 has doubled.

"The fall does not apply to deaths of women journalists, which have doubled. Ten have been killed in 2017, compared to five in 2016," said RSF. "Most of these victims were experienced and combative investigative reporters. Despite threats, they continued to investigate and expose cases of corruption. The victims include Daphne Caruana Galizia in Malta, Gauri Lankesh in India, and Miroslava Breach Velducea in Mexico."

According to RSF, the 65 journalists who were killed were either fatally injured during the course of their work or were murdered because their reporting angered someone. Some 326 journalists are currently in prison, and 54 are held, hostage.

While mentioning on the press freedom in India, RSF revealed that “with Hindu nationalists trying to purge all manifestations of 'anti-national' thought from the national debate, self-censorship is growing in the mainstream media.” Journalists are increasingly becoming the targets of online smear campaigns by the most radical nationalists, who vilify them and even threaten physical reprisals.

Though no journalist has so far been convicted of sedition, the prosecutions are used to gag journalists who are critical of the Indian government.

On the other hand, Union Minister of state for home Hansraj Ahir informed the Lok Sabha that 114 people were arrested for attacks on journalists out of the 189 cases which were registered in different parts of the country in the last three years.

On Tuesday, the minister said that 41 people were arrested and 47 cases registered for attacks on media persons in 2016. As many as 41 people were arrested and 28 cases registered for similar incidents in 2015.

However, the international scenario is a bit hopeful according to the RSF.

"Although these figures are alarming, 2017 has been the least deadly year for professional journalists (50 killed) in 14 years," RSF said. "Journalists are, of course, fleeing countries such as Syria, Yemen, and Libya that have become too dangerous, but RSF has also observed a growing awareness of the need to protect journalists. The UN has passed several resolutions on the safety of journalists since 2006 and many news organisations have adopted safety procedures."

Meanwhile, the Committee to Protect Journalists' (CPJ) special report by Elana Beiser which was published on December 13 this year said that a record number of journalists, 262, were put behind bars for their work in 2017.

The CPJ report, which observed the dismal failure by the international community to address a global crisis in freedom of the press, said that 35 journalists worldwide were jailed without any publicly-disclosed charge.

The other major findings of CPJ included 97% of jailed journalists of the total imprisoned worldwide were local, eight percentage (22) of them were female journalists and freelancers accounted for 29 percent (75) of the cases. Politics was the declared to be the most dangerous beat, with 87 percent of those who covered it, jailed.

In its annual report, CPJ included only those journalists who it has confirmed have been imprisoned in relation to their work. While the RSF report included citizen journalists, professional journalists and media workers too.