SRINAGAR, Aug 7: The besieged valley of Kashmir is increasingly becoming one of the most unsafe places for media persons to perform their professional duties. With the valley caught in the grip of yet another cycle of agitation, journalists, mostly video and photo journalists, see themselves as having been caught in the line of fire.
“Mediapersons in Kashmir have for long been at the receiving end,” said a senior journalist of the valley. “More often than not they get caught into clashes while performing their duties and end up becoming victims of violence themselves.”
Pertinently, several journalists were beaten to pulp during the ongoing unrest. A senior journalist, working for BBC Urdu service, Riyaz Masroor was severely thrashed by police last month outside his Alochi Bag residence. The ruthless beating left Masroor with a fractured arm. In a similar incident, another journalist, Gauhar, was attacked by police while performing his professional duty.
One of the photo journalists, Aman, was critically injured when a senior police cop allegedly fired at him in January this year.
“It is tough to work in an atmosphere where everything is controlled by security agencies. They make y
ou notice that your work is being monitored no matter how honestly you are performing your job,” Desk Editor BBC Urdu Service, Nayeema Ahmad Mahjoor, told Kashmir Times. “As a journalist I don’t represent government or other part, but if you tell me what to publish and what to broadcast, then you are putting pressure on me to toe your line. That is what has become a practice in Kashmir, especially with local journalists.”
She said that international journalists do their job without tough restrictions “but even they can not escape the monitoring net of censorship authorities”.
According to a data, several Kashmiri journalists, including a woman scribe, Asia Jeelani, have been killed in the conflict-ridden valley of Kashmir since 1989. They include Mushtaq Ali (ANI), Ghulam Mohammad Lone (News Agent), Ghulam Rasool Azad (Newspaper owner), Mohammad Shaban Vakeel (Al-Safa), and Parvaiz Ahmad Sultan (NAFA).
Among those who were tortured and illegally detained include Muhammad Maqbool Sahil (Chattan), Rehmatullah Khan (Editor, Rehmat), and Syed Iftikhar Gilani (Kashmir Times).
“Journalists in Kashmir have been the most wanted throughout the 22 years of turmoil. 
They have suffered more than any other community. We lost 11 people and many were subjected to torture and shifted to various jails,” said Sahil Maqbool, who spent 40 months behind bars. “Even today I am facing court cases and have been put in the ‘vulnerable’ list of Kashmiri people. My passport has been seized by the government and I am not allowed to move out of the country.”
The state governments have been ad nauseum claiming that media persons were allowed to move out freely, but the happenings of recent past and situation on ground belie their claims.
In an unprecedented move, authorities had clamped restriction on Press Enclave last month, and journalists were not allowed to come out of their offices. Moreover, hundreds and thousands of police and paramilitary CRPF men were directed not to allow any journalist move around.
Still and video cameras of journalists were seized by police in a bid to restrict them from covering the clashes and protests in the valley.
“Journalist of Kashmir have stood through think and thin and have often put their lives at risk while performing their duties,” said another senior journalist.
The journalists here alleged that most of the times security forces refused to entertain curfew passes issued to us by the district magistrate.
“They (security forces) don’t even entertain special passes. The only thing they say is that ‘we have been instructed not to allow anyone move around’,” said a journalist working with a local news channel.
Significantly, the authorities have banned local news channels here to run current affairs programmes or political commentaries.
During 2008 Amarnath land row, publication of newspapers was suspended for several days. This year also, newspapers did not hit the stands for several days.
After the attack on journalists, representative bodies of newspaper owners, journalists associated with print media, photo and video journalists had suspended the publication of all newspapers earlier in July to protests against continues attack by the men in uniform on media persons. They had also claimed that authorities had issued insufficient number of curfew passes to them.
National and international media organizations, showing solidarity with Kashmiri journalists, have lashed out at the state government for “curbing the press".
No comments:
Post a Comment