Threats to journalists in Kashmir | Statement by Editor’s Guild

The Editors Guild of India
Address: 4/7- A, INS Building, Rafi Marg, New Delhi-110001

PRESS STATEMENT

November 18th, 2022

The Editors Guild of India is deeply concerned about the recent threats issued to journalists working in Kashmir, by alleged terror organisations, and the subsequent resignations of five of the journalists from their respective media outlets.

Journalists in Kashmir now find themselves in the firing line from both the state authorities as well as terrorists, in what is a throwback to the years of heightened militancy in the 1990s. Once again media houses have been named by terror groups warning that those associated with well-known regional papers including Rising Kashmir and Greater Kashmir will be declared “traitors†and that “their timeline is sealed†.

Space for media freedom and active civil society has been steadily eroding in the region. It must be recalled that the editor of Rising Kashmir Shujaat Bukhari was assassinated in June 2018. The Kashmir Press Club, which had become an important institution for fighting for the protection and rights of journalists, was shut down by the state administration earlier in the year, weakening the layer of peer-driven protection for the journalists.

These pronouncements by terror organisations have further worsened the sense of fear and insecurity, which makes it impossible for the journalists to work freely. The Guild strongly condemns such threats and calls upon the state government to create an atmosphere of security and trust, wherein the media is not compelled to take sides, and is able to work in a free environment with full security.

Seema Mustafa, President | Anant Nath, General Secretary | Shriram Pawar, Treasurer