NEW DELHI: The News Broadcasters Association (NBA), in a statement released Monday, has strongly condemned the FIRs against senior journalists and editors over their coverage of farmers’ protest and the ensuing violence that took place on 26 January in Delhi. It has requested the government to ensure that the cases filed by the police against these journalists are quashed.
The NBA said that it believes that both the print and electronic media have been covering the farmers’ protest in a “fair, balanced, and objective manner.”
It went on to add, “To construe the reporting on one incident as an intent on the part of the journalists to incite violence or as an offence is like shooting the messenger.”
The association also showed worry over the provisions under which the FIRs have been filed, including sedition, harming national integrity, and promoting communal disharmony.
“Weaponising archaic laws such as sedition to stifle journalists negates the founding principles of our democracy that recognises the rights of news media to report without fear or favour. Laws such as sedition are also being increasingly used to impede the functioning of a free press. The targeting of journalists is an attack on press freedom and severely impairs the media’s ability to perform its journalistic duties as an independent watchdog of our democracy,” the NBA stated.
Several journalists including Mrinal Pande, Rajdeep Sardesai, Vinod Jose, Zafar Agha, Paresh Nath and Anant Nath were named in criminal complaints over their “social media posts” regarding the farmers’ tractor rally that turned violent during Republic Day.
Meanwhile, the Delhi high court has issued notices to a leading media house, the NBA and the Centre following a petition seeking direction to check the spread of fake news through the channel’s various electronic, digital and social media handles. The petition claimed the respondent media house (Aaj Tak) had “unleashed an offensive and potentially fatal communal attack on the Sikh community” through its reportage in the farmers protests against the three contentious farm laws.
