Press Club of India Questions Whether Police Were Directed to Target Journalists

Newsreel Asia Insight #297
July 30, 2024

Poonam Pandey, a Delhi-based journalist, was prevented by police from filming a protest and subsequently detained while covering the demonstration by the opposition Congress party. The Press Club of India has requested a judicial inquiry into the incident, voicing concerns about the treatment of journalists in the country.

The Press Club of India noted in a statement on July 30 that Pandey, the assistant editor of the Hindi newspaper Navbharat Times, was covering a demonstration by Mahila Congress workers near Kartavya Path when police physically barred her from filming the event and was subsequently detained with the protesters. This occurred despite her clearly identifying herself as a journalist and presenting her press ID.

“Journalism is not a crime but silencing journalists is certainly a crime against democracy,” the club stated.

“It is no mere coincidence that this happened a stone’s throw away from the seat of power and the Parliament House. The act smacks of an attitude towards a free press characteristic of the current administration. The club management demands an independent judicial inquiry to determine whether security personnel have been instructed to target and intimate journalists covering events that might cause discomfort to those in power.”

According to a report in Navbharat Times, Pandey faced aggressive interference from the police who blocked her camera with a black cloth and attempted to snatch her phone despite her protests and continuous identification as a press member. No female police officers were present during the incident, although female soldiers from the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) were involved in forcibly taking her phone and placing her on a bus with the demonstrators.

From inside the bus, Pandey continued to assert her rights as a journalist, but to no avail as the bus departed with her inside, said the newspaper.

The Press Club of India reported that on July 29, reporters were also barred from accessing certain entrances of Parliament where they usually engage with Members of Parliament (MPs), specifically the Makar Dwar entrance of the new parliament building. This led to a protest outside Parliament by the reporters who were restricted in their movements.

During a session in the Lok Sabha, Congress party’s Rahul Gandhi, the Leader of Opposition, addressed the issue with Speaker Om Birla, metaphorically describing the situation as a chakravyuh, a term from the Hindu epic Mahabharata symbolising entrapment. Gandhi’s remarks prompted a response from Birla, who invited him to discuss the matter privately.

The Editors Guild of India had earlier urged the Speaker and Rajya Sabha Chairperson Jagdeep Dhankhar to lift the pandemic-era restrictions which have limited journalists’ access to Parliament, as reported by Scroll.in.

Despite over a thousand journalists being accredited to cover the proceedings, only a fraction have actual access, a restriction that contradicts the practices established since the first parliamentary session in 1952, the guild pointed out.

Between February and June of 2024, three foreign journalists were reportedly forced to leave India after their journalist permits were denied, according to reports.

India is placed 159th among 180 countries in the 2024 Press Freedom Index released by Reporters Without Borders. “According to the index, press freedom in India is currently comparable to that of the occupied Palestinian territories; the UAE, an absolute monarchy; Turkey, a flawed democracy; and Russia, an authoritarian regime,” The Hindu noted in May.