Journalists protest today at Press Club of India

*Today it’s Prashant, tomorrow it can be you

The journalists in Delhi and those associated with Press Club of India are organising a Protest Meet against arbitrary arrest of Prashant Kanojia and other journalists by UP Police.

Editors Guild of India, Press Club of India, Women Press Corps, South Asian Women in the Media (SAWM, India), Press Association and Uttarakhand Journalists Forum has condemned the arbitrary arrest of Delhi-based freelance journalist Prashant Kanojia and Noida-based TV channel’s Ishita Singh and Anuj Shukla.

Kanojia was picked by UP Police personnel in plain clothes from his East Delhi residence on June 8.

The UP police in a suo-moto FIR has accused Kanojia of making “objectionable tweets” against UP CM Yogi Adityanath. Kanojia has been booked under IPC sections 500 (defamation), 505 and 67 of the IT Act.

This act of UP Police is highly condemnable and attack on freedom of the press.

The various journalists organisations had demanded immediate release of Prashant Kanojia and other journalists.

They also demaned that the UP government should withdraw the criminal defamation charges against all the three journalists.

The office bearers urged all journalists to join the march against these arbitrary arrests in huge numbers to express their solidarity with the media fraternity.

According to the wife of Mr. Kanojia, who was the sole witness to his arrest, he was whisked away without as much as giving her opportunity to talk to her husband. According to the FIR, a case of criminal defamation under section 500 of IPC has been registered against him, which is non-bailable and cognisable.

The action taken by the UP Police against these three journalists is a clear case of administrative overreach and excessive in proportion by way of application of law. The protesting journalists said as media-persons, it is our firm belief that journalists ought to conduct themselves responsibly, yet at the same time, we feel that criminal provisions of the defamation law should be taken off the statute books, given their repeated use against journalists and others.

The media organisations urge and demanded that the UP government should reconsider and withdraw the criminal defamation charges against all three journalists