{"id":69128,"date":"2019-06-10T01:01:28","date_gmt":"2019-06-09T19:31:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/?p=69128"},"modified":"2019-06-10T01:01:28","modified_gmt":"2019-06-09T19:31:28","slug":"nwmi-editors-guild-question-journalists-arrest-seek-immediate-release","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/2019\/06\/10\/nwmi-editors-guild-question-journalists-arrest-seek-immediate-release\/","title":{"rendered":"NWMI, Editors Guild question journalists\u2019 arrest, seek immediate release"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nITANAGAR, Jun 9:<\/strong> The Network of Women in Media, India (NWMI) has condemned the arrest of journalists Prashant Kanojia, Ishita Singh and Anuj Shukla.
\nKanojia is an independent journalist, who was arrested by the Uttar Pradesh police for allegedly tweeting critical posts against Yogi Adityanath, the chief minister of UP. The police have claimed that the tweets – which relate to a woman making allegations about Adityanath \u2013 \u201cmalign the image\u201d of Adityanath.
\nKanojia was picked up by plainclothes policemen from his house in Delhi on 8 June, and taken to Lucknow. He was initially charged under Section 500 IPC and Section 66 of the IT Act. No warrant was presented at that time. Later, more charges were added.
\nThe UP police also arrested Ishita Singh, head of Nation Live, a Noida-based channel, and one of its editors, Anuj Shukla, for airing footage of the woman making claims about Adityanath, and allegedly propagating defamatory content.
\nThe police issued a warning in a press release the same evening, asking people \u201cnot to write things on social media that disturb the law and order.\u201d
\nEquating criticism of the chief minister with disturbing law and order is contrary to freedom of expression in a democracy, the NWMI said in a statement.
\nThe fact that the three were picked up on a weekend when courts are shut and the procedure to get bail becomes difficult, is a clear indicator that the police\u2019s intention is to harass them further, thereby denying them access to justice, it said.
\nThe NWMI has demanded immediate release of Kanojia, Singh and Shukla, dropping of all charges against them, and a credible investigation into the misuse of laws against journalists.
\nMeanwhile, the Editors Guild also on Sunday condemned the arrest of the journalist, and the editor and head of the television channel over alleged objectionable content related to Adityanath, describing the police action as an \u201cauthoritarian misuse of laws\u201d and an effort to intimidate the press.
\n\u201cThe police action is high-handed, arbitrary and amounts to an authoritarian misuse of laws,\u201d the guild said in a statement.
\nThe guild sees it as an effort to intimidate the press and stifle freedom of expression, the statement said.
\n\u201cWhatever the accuracy of the woman\u2019s claims, to register a case of criminal defamation against the journalists for sharing it on the social media and airing it on a television channel is a brazen misuse of law,\u201d the guild statement said.
\nAs with a recent case in Karnataka that the guild spoke about, the FIR in this case was also not filed by the person allegedly affected, but suo motu by the police, the guild noted.
\n\u201cThis is a condemnable misuse of law and state power,\u201d the statement said.
\nThe Editors Guild had demanded withdrawal of the FIR against the editor of a Kannada daily and its editorial staff for publishing a report about trouble within former prime minister and JDS chief HD Deve Gowda\u2019s family.
\nAccording to the complaint filed by Janata Dal (Secular)\u2019s Karnataka secretary SP Pradeep Kumar, the newspaper, Vishwavani, had published a \u201cfalse report\u201d on 25 May, which created an impression that there was commotion and confusion among Gowda\u2019s grandchildren.
\nThe editor, Vishweshwar Bhat, and the editorial staff were booked on 26 May under Sections 499 (defamation), 406 (criminal breach of trust) and 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code.
\nThe guild also reiterated its demand that the defamation law should be decriminalized.
\n\u201cThe misuse of law in this specific case, as in Karnataka earlier, goes way beyond criminal defamation as many IT Act and Indian Penal Code provisions have been invoked in what looks like a motivated and vindictive action,\u201d the guild said.\u00a0(With PTI inputs)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ITANAGAR, Jun 9: The Network of Women in Media, India (NWMI) has condemned the arrest of journalists Prashant Kanojia, Ishita Singh and Anuj Shukla. Kanojia is an independent journalist, who was arrested by the Uttar Pradesh police for allegedly tweeting critical posts against Yogi Adityanath, the chief minister of UP. The police have claimed that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-69128","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-state-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69128\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}