Lingaram Kodopi

New York, November 14, 2013–The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the release on bail today of Lingaram Kodopi, an Indian journalist who has been imprisoned for more than two years, and calls on authorities to drop all charges against him.

New York, July 12, 2013–Indian authorities’ failure to proceed expeditiously in the prosecution of a freelance journalist is a miscarriage of justice, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. The journalist, who has been held for almost two years without bail on anti-state charges, had exposed police wrongdoing in central Chhattisgarh state.

Dear Prime Minister Singh: The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned by Indian authorities’ continued abuse of a colonial-era sedition law to stifle freedom of expression. CPJ calls on your government to begin taking action toward repealing the law, section 124A in the Indian penal code, which Indian lawmakers have deemed punitive and outdated.

The New Delhi-based Tehelka magazine published an open letter by imprisoned freelance journalist Lingaram Kodopi on Monday. Kodopi, one of the two journalists CPJ documented in prison in India on December 1, 2011, has been held without charge since September 2011 as a suspected associate of insurgent Maoists in Chhattisgarh. His supporters believe he faces harassment…

New York, September 21, 2011–An Indian journalist who covered police violence in the state of Chhattisgarh was recently arrested on antistate charges that human rights groups say are retaliatory, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.