The Editors Guild of India (EGI) on Sunday condemned the Tripura police’s action of booking 102 people, including journalists, under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
The EGI said the government cannot use such stringent laws to suppress reporting on communal violence incidents.
The Guild, in a statement, said it was “deeply shocked” at the police’s action against journalists and said it was an attempt by the Tripura government to deflect attention away from its own failure to control majoritarian violence.
Tripura Police on Saturday booked 102 people under UAPA criminal conspiracy and forgery charges for social media post on Tripura communal violence.
The Tripura police also served notices to the authorities of Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to freeze their accounts and inform all particulars of those persons to it.
“The Editors Guild of India is deeply shocked by the Tripura Police’s action of booking 102 people, including journalists, under the coercive Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, for reporting and writing on the recent communal violence in the state,” the EGI said.
The Guild said one of the journalists, Shyam Meera Singh, has alleged that he has been booked under the UAPA for merely tweeting ‘Tripura is burning’.
“This is an extremely disturbing trend where such a harsh law, where in the process of investigation and bail applications are extremely rigorous and overbearing, is being used for merely reporting on and protesting against communal violence.
“The Guild is of the opinion that this is an attempt by the state government to deflect attention away from its own failure to control majoritarian violence, as well as to take action against the perpetrators of this. Governments cannot use stringent laws like UAPA to suppress reporting on such incidents,” it said.
The EGI demanded that the state government conduct an objective and fair investigation into the circumstances of the rights instead of penalizing journalists and civil society activists.
“Further, the Guild reiterates its earlier demand to the Supreme Court of India to take cognizance of the manner in which such laws are unjustifiably used against freedom of speech, and to issue stringent guidelines on charging journalist under them, so that these laws don’t become an easy tool for suppressing press freedom,” it said.
A mosque was vandalized and two shops were torched at Chamtilla in Tripura during a rally taken out by VHP activists on October 26 to protest against the communal violence in Bangladesh.