A Letter to the Isareli Prime Minister from Indian Journalists (May 16, 2022)

To
Mr. Naftali Bennett, Prime Minister of Israel, Tel Aviv,
Israel

Through
Mr. Naor Gilon,
Ambassador of Israel to India, New Delhi,
India

16.05.2022

Dear Mr Prime Minister,

We, Indian journalists, are writing to you to express our strong condemnation of the ’murder’ of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh who was shot in the face while she was reporting a raid by Israeli soldiers from Jenin. The shocking assassination — described as such by Al Jazeera — again underlines your government’s inability to accept independent journalism that speaks the truth. Akleh was known for her independent reporting. She was killed by an Israeli sniper, according to Al Jazeera, even though she was wearing a helmet and body armour marked "Press". Shireen Akleh was standing with other journalists when she was shot in the face. An Al Jazeera producer was shot in the back but survived.

We are also amazed that despite the worldwide condemnation, Israeli police were again directed to stop her funeral procession. And resorted to violence when the Palestinians tried to move forward, with videos recording the brutal attack on the pallbearers that made them nearly drop the casket. The videos also record the police beating and kicking the mourners. We understand that some kind of enquiry has been ordered, as well as an investigation as to whether the well known journalist was shot from an Israeli army jeep.

This attack comes from a deliberately created environment of impunity, where the Palestinians are targetted by Israeli military at will, and the journalists pay the price for independent reportage. We expect strong condemnation from you Sir, as well as a transparent investigation by an independent authority to ensure that she gets justice in death, and that more such targeted attacks and killings are stopped.

Signatories (all are senior journalists from different parts of India)::

Abid Shah A.Amaraiah
Amit Prakash Singh Amit Sengupta
Amitabh Srivastava
Amitabha Roychowdhury
Amita Verma
Ammu Joseph
Ajaz Ashraf
Ajoy Ashirwad
Anand Sahay
Ananth Nath
Anil Chamadia
Anjali Deshpande
Antara Dev Sen Anuradha Bhasin
Ashlin Mathew
Bobby Naqvi
Bharat Bhushan
Bharat Sharma Chandrakant
Deepak Parvatiyar
Dhanya Rajendran
G.Anjaneyulu
Geetha Seshu
Jawed Naqvi
Jigeesh AM
John Cherian
John Dayal
John Thomas
Jyoti Malhotra
Jyoti Punwani
K.Muniraj
K.Murali
K.A.Shaji
Karuna John
Kavitha Muralidharan
Keya Acharya
K.S.Dakshina
Murthy Kumkum Chadha
Kunal Shankar
Kuldeep Kumar
Latha Jishnu
Laxmi Murthy
Madhavan Narayanan
Mandira Nayyar
Mannika Chopra
Masoom Moradabadi
Meghnad Bose
Mehru Jaffer
Mrinal Pande
Mukesh Kumar
Murali Krishnan
M.A.Ravooth
N.Kondaiah
Neelam Jeena
Nikita Sharma
Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay
Nirmala Ganapathy
Nivedita Jha
Padmaja Shaw
Pamela Philipose
Pankaj Srivastava
Paranjoy Guha Thakurta
Paromita S.
Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jr. P
atricia Mukhim
Poornima Joshi
Prakash Dube
Preeti Mehra
Purnima Tripathi
Raghu Karnad
Rahul Bedi
Rajashri Dasgupta
Rajalakshmi
Rajeev Khanna
Rathin Das
Rashme Sehgal
Revati Laul
Rita Anand
Rita Manchanda
Rukmani Anandani
Sandhya Ravishankar
Satish Mishra
Seema Chishti
Seema Mustafa
Shaikh Azizur Rahman
Sharda Ugra
Shastri Ramachandaran
Shobhna Jain
Shubha Singh
Shiv Inder Singh
S.K. Pande
Soma Basu
Sonal Kellogg
Smita Gupta
Sucheta Dalal
Sujata Madhok
Sujata Shakeel
Sujata Raghavan
Sukumar Muralidharan
Sunita Aron
Suresh Bafna
Tanushree Gangopadhyay
Teesta Setalvad
Tripta Batra
Uma Kant Lakhera
Urmilesh
V.Sreenivasa Rao
Vaishna Roy
Venkat Parsa
Venkatesh Kesari
Vidya Subrahmaniam
Vijay Lokapally
Vinod Sharma
Vivian Fernandes
Wadood Sajid