- Tuesday, April 16, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
THE Pegasus snooping controversy was set to overshadow the visit of United States secretary of state Antony Blinken to India as the International Press Institute (IPI) on Tuesday (27) urged him to raise the issue of press freedom during his bilateral meetings with the Indian leadership.
The body said the recent revelations that some 40 journalists were targeted with Israeli spyware Pegasus show the extent to which the Narendra Modi government has gone to interfere in the professional and private lives of journalists.
ALSO READ: United Nations says it is ‘disturbed by the death’ of Stan Swamy
The IPI, which is a seven-decade-old global organisation of editors, media executives and leading journalists dedicated to the work of defending the freedom of press, made the appeal in a letter to Blinken at the beginning of hid two-day visit to New Delhi on Tuesday.
“The government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has displayed complete intolerance to criticism and resorted to legal harassment to punish those journalists and media organisations who are critical of its policies and speak truth to power,” said the letter.
“Draconian laws like sedition, the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act and the Disaster Management Act have been regularly invoked against several prominent editors and journalists who dared to question government’s policies and actions, especially its response to the COVID-19 pandemic,” it added.
Modi slammed over income tax raids against Indian media outlets
Welcoming Blinken’s pre-visit plans to raise the issue of human rights and democracy during his meetings with prime minister Modi and external affairs minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, IPI executive director Barbara Trionfi called on the top diplomat of the Joe Biden administration to also raise the issue of declining press freedom and harassment of independent journalists and media organisations in India.
India has previously rejected criticism by foreign governments and human rights groups on allegations that civil liberties have eroded in the country. The government has claimed that India has well-established democratic practices and robust institutions to safeguard the rights of all.
However, the Modi government recently came under accusations following raids by India’s income-tax department against a couple of media houses and the death of an activist in judicial custody earlier this month.
An international media consortium recently reported that more than 300 verified mobile phone numbers of over 40 journalists, three opposition leaders and one sitting judge besides scores of businesspersons and activists in India could have been targeted for hacking through the Pegasus spyware. India categorically rejected the snooping allegations saying attempts were being made to “malign” Indian democracy.
Meanwhile, sources in India’s foreign ministry said ahead of Blinken’s visit that India is proud of its pluralist traditions and happy to discuss the human rights record issue with the secretary of state after Washington said he planned to talk on the same, Reuters reported.
The US state department said ahead of Blinken’s trip to India that he will raise the Asian power’s human rights record and a religion-based citizenship law that the Modi government brought two years ago and which the Muslim inhabitants of the country see as discriminatory.
