NEW YORK – The National Press Club, a Washington-based professional andsocial club for working journalists, has honoured Kashmiri journalist AasifSultan – who has been jailed in India for over a year now for his reporting– with its annual John Aubuchhon Press Freedom Award.
Aasif Sultan, who was imprisoned by Indian security agencies last year inAugust, is accused of aiding insurgents even though he merely reported onthem, the Press Club said.
The police seized his electronic devices and notebooks. They interrogatedhim about his sources and asked him to become an informant, his editor hassaid, according to a news release.
“Sultan’s case reflects worsening conditions for the press and citizenry in(occupied) Kashmir, a region in northern India that is partly controlled byIndia and partly by Pakistan,” the NPC said in the announcement.
The Indian-controlled section of Kashmir had been semi-autonomous fordecades, the Press Club announcement said.
“But the current Indian government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi,moved earlier this month to bring the region fully under the centralgovernment’s control. Modi’s government has instituted a crackdown and acommunications blackout that has left journalists struggling to report thenews, and many have been incarcerated or beaten,” the NPC said.
“It is completely unacceptable for India to violate the basic human rightsof reporters and to deny the people of Kashmir access to unfilteredinformation through an unfettered press,” Alison Kodjak, president of theNational Press Club, said.
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In February this year, the Committee to Protect Journalists called on Jammuand Kashmir police to immediately cease all legal proceedings againstjournalist Aasif Sultan and release him from jail after local news outletsreported that formal charges were filed against him today.
Sultan, along with nine other individuals, has been charged with harbouringand giving support to a militant organization and for hatching a criminalconspiracy under India’s Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, the CPJ noted
“Filing terrorism-related charges against journalist Aasif Sultan, despitea complete lack of evidence, marks a terrible injustice and furtherundermines press freedom in Jammu and Kashmir,” said Steven Butler, CPJ’sAsia program coordinator, from Washington, D.C.
“Is it so hard to understand that journalists, in the normal course oftheir work, must make contact with the people they write about?”.
