Key Points
The 44-year-old blames his incarceration on a worsening climate for journalists in India, where arrests and harassment are growing more common.. ..
In the latest index for this year it rose slightly to 159th place but remains below all neighbors except Bangladesh (165th).. . . There has been a sharp deterioration in the status of media over the last ten years, Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) India representative Kunal Majumder told CNN, adding that this included imprisonment and invoking terror laws to criminalize journalists.. ..
When the state resorts to using anti-terror laws to shut down the freedom of expression of journalists holding institutions to account, then we are deep in authoritarian rule, said Banaji from LSE.. . Asked about this apparent increase in hostility to journalists, Kanchan Gupta, senior advisor to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, told CNN that media workers were not above the law.. ..
The Amnesty 2022 release says Hindu nationalists feel emboldened to threaten and abuse journalists critical of the government.. . Ravish Kumar, one of the countrys best-known journalists, said he has not felt safe for many years while people from various Hindu-nationalist organisations showered him with death threats and abuse.. ..
The Australian Broadcasting Corporations South Asia bureau chief Avani Dias recently left the country, as did Vanessa Dougnac, regional correspondent for four French publications.. . Dias said the government told her that her visa extension would be denied as her reporting had crossed a line, though the government has denied this..
