‘An open-air prison’: Kashmiri journalists on how travel bans undermine press freedom
When Indian immigration officials stopped freelance Kashmiri journalist Aakash Hassan at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi international airport on July 26, they held him for several hours and questioned him about his family, his professional background and his reason for traveling – and refused to allow him to board his Sri Lanka flight because, they said, he was listed…
Kashmir media at a ‘breaking point’ amid rising number of journalist detentions
Sajad Gul’s mother had prepared his favorite dishes as she anxiously awaited his return home. The Kashmiri journalist, who had been granted bail the day before, on January 15, 2022, was to be released following his arrest earlier that month in a criminal conspiracy case, according to a journalist friend who spoke on condition of…
Journalists in India face attacks, legal action, and threats
In September and October 2020, lists circulating online allegedly identifying journalists as “anti-Hindu” or as “Indian agents” named dozens of local members of the press, police opened investigations into at least two reporters and one media executive, and authorities attacked at least one journalist during the course of his reporting, according to news reports and…
Kashmiri journalists describe new government tactics to control the narrative
In April, after Srinagar-based senior journalist Peerzada Ashiq published an article about the families of two militants who wanted to exhume their bodies to perform funeral rites, police in Kashmir launched an investigation and accused him of publishing “fake news.” Ashiq told CPJ that he had sought official comment on multiple channels, but never received…