In Kashmir, fast-eroding press freedoms under India’s control of disputed territory

For five years, Sajad Gul wrote about conflict wracking his homeland, a disputed Himalayan territory where a violent armed rebellion and India’s brutal counterinsurgency have raged for over three decades.

“Indian authorities appear determined to prevent journalists from doing their jobs,” said Steven Butler, Asia program coordinator of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. Instead of freeing Gul, authorities charged him in a new case under the Public Safety Act, which allows officials to imprison anyone for up to two years without trial.Media has always been tightly controlled in India’s part of Muslim-majority Kashmir. Arm-twisting and fear have been extensively used to intimidate the press since 1989, when rebels began fighting Indian soldiers in a bid to establish an independent Kashmir or union with Pakistan.

Bhasin was among the few who filed a petition with India’s Supreme Court, resulting in partial restoration of communication services after the 2019 blackout, which the government had said was necessary to stall anti-India protests.Bhasin’s legacy newspaper office in Srinagar, operating from a rented government building, was sealed by authorities without any notice. Its staff was not allowed to take out any equipment.

“We have been merely trying to keep afloat and hardly have been able to do proper journalism for various reasons, one being that we are mainly dependent on government ads,” said Sajjad Haider, the top editor of Kashmir Observer. The government defended its move by citing “potential law and order situation” and “the safety of bona fide journalists.” It said the club failed to register under a new law and hold elections for a new managing body.

In this battle of narratives, journalists have been berated by authorities for not using the term “terrorists” for separatist rebels. Government communiques mostly appear on front pages and statements from pro-India Kashmiri groups critical of Modi’s policies are barely published.

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