A total of nine journalists’ bodies, including the Press Club of India, Indian Women Press Corps, and Press Association, wrote to President Droupadi Murmu, on Monday, requesting her intervention as the highest constitutional authority to ensure that the freedoms in the country’s Constitution, which includes the freedom of speech, the freedom to profess occupation and livelihood, are protected.
This memorandum from the journalist bodies to the president, comes days after the October 3 raids by the Delhi Police’s special cell on the houses of 46 journalists, editors, writers, and professionals seemingly connected to the digital news organization NewsClick.
In the memorandum, the journalists’ bodies said there was a dark period as well when the “fourth estate” was fettered, a phase which the country’s democracy would not like to see repeated.
“Today, our community faces a similar but more insidious challenge,” they said.
“Even as the majority in our profession face precarious working conditions, the use of draconian laws against journalists has gone up exponentially. Many of these laws do not even acknowledge the special role that our independent press plays – that of being the voice of so many diverse citizens of this country,” the memorandum said.
“And under some of these draconian laws, the authorities have used their unfettered right to seize equipment such as phones, laptops, and hard disks – equipment and software that are the source of livelihood for our community. These laws do not provide for bail where incarceration is the norm and not the exception,” it said.
The journalists further said for a democracy to thrive and progress, its media must be free. The independent media with all its diversity has been able to bring forth many of the pressing issues faced by ordinary people, a role that it is expected to do.
Other six signatories to the memorandum are the Delhi Union of Journalists, Kerala Union of Working Journalists, Digipub News India Foundation, Foreign Correspondents’ Club, Veteran Journalists Group, and the All-India Lawyers’ Union.