India

2020

  
Women form a human shield to protect Shaheen Abdulla, a journalist with news website Maktoob Media, from police wielding batons at Jamia Millia Islamia University in New Delhi, India, on December 15, 2019. Journalists have been attacked in cities across India while covering recent protests. (Ghulam Hussain via Reuters)

Journalists beaten, detained while covering protests in cities across India

Beginning in December 2019, hundreds of thousands of people across India protested against new laws that they allege discriminate against Muslims in the country, according to news reports. Demonstrators and police attacked journalists covering the protests, and authorities detained reporters covering them, according to news reports and journalists who spoke to CPJ.

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Indian security forces personnel patrol a street in Srinagar on January 10, 2020. Press freedom concerns persist in Jammu and Kashmir, where internet has been only partially restored after a months-long shutdown. (Reuters/Danish Ismail)

Lawyer Mishi Choudhury on what India shutdowns ruling means for journalists

On January 14, the Jammu and Kashmir administration partially restored mobile internet in a handful of districts, according to news reports. The administration, which is directly controlled by the Indian government, had imposed a complete communication ban in the restive region after withdrawing its special status under the Indian constitution in August 2019, as CPJ…

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Journalists use the internet inside a government-run media center in Srinagar on January 10, 2020. The Indian Supreme Court today criticized internet restrictions that have obstructed the media for five months. (Reuters/Danish Ismail)

India should restore internet in Kashmir as court orders shutdown review

New York, January 10, 2020–The Indian Supreme Court ordered a review of the legal process used to implement the ongoing shutdown in Indian-controlled Kashmir today. The ruling affirmed that freedom of speech “using the medium of internet is constitutionally protected.”

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Freelance journalist Santosh Yadav, left, with human rights defender Shalini Gera and CPJ India Correspondent Kunal Majumder, during a convention on journalist safety in Raipur, Chhattisgarh, in February 2019. A court on January 2 acquitted Yadav of several charges, ending a four-year legal battle. (CPJ)

‘I feel like a weight has been lifted’ freelance journalist Santosh Yadav says as Chhattisgarh court ends four-year legal nightmare

On January 2, freelance journalist Santosh Yadav got his life back when the National Investigation Agency court in Jagdalpur acquitted him of charges of helping Maoists militants. The ruling marked the end of a legal nightmare that lasted over four years for Yadav, who says that he was threatened and beaten in custody, before being…

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2020