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FMP condemns hate speech against journalists

-Press Note by Foundation for Media Professionals (FMP), dated 28 May, 2018

Mr Narendra Modi is perhaps the first Prime Minister of India to have not held a single press conference, four years at a stretch. This could not however have been unrelated to a series of events that raise fresh concerns about media freedom.

The concerted online hate campaign against journalist Ms Rana Ayyub, and the circulation of a fake pornographic video purportedly showing her, after a malicious tweet had been falsely attributed to her, prompted the intervention of UN human rights experts. Television anchor Mr Ravish Kumar was subjected to similar intimidation and cyber bullying, again for taking positions that evidently infuriated supporters of the ruling dispensation.

It’s a commentary on the state of Indian democracy that the Government has reacted to neither of these attacks on the Fourth Estate. This silence is despite the cautionary precedent of Gauri Lankesh’s murder and the gleeful reactions to it from trolls known to be issuing murder/rape threats and hate speech couched in the language of nationalism.

Meanwhile, the sting conducted by website cobrapost.com has exposed the vulnerability of editorial space to the apparent willingness of owners and managers of leading media organizations to promote the Hindutva agenda under the guise of advertisements and advertorials. If the Radia tapes scandal of 2010 was about the influence evidently wielded by a corporate lobbyist over senior journalists, the two tranches of videos released by Cobrapost have raised questions about the proclivity of media owners and managers to disregard journalistic ethics in deference to dominant political interests.

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