Muhammad Farooq Rehmani, Convener All Parties Hurriyat Conference AJK chapter, has strongly lambasted India for muzzling and squeezing the local press and media for human rights advocacy and supporting universal laws and guidelines as formulated by the United Nations after its birth in 1945.
In a bid to appreciate the hard work of press, every year, May 3 is observed as World Press Freedom Day. Press has been hailed as the 4th pillar of democracy, journalists have time and again risked their lives and reputation to reveal the truth behind an incident, event or scandal”.
Muhammad Farooq Rehmani, appreciated the 2022 theme for the day: ” journalism under digital siege.” The theme is intended to highlight the multiple ways in which surveillance and digitally meditated attacks endanger journalists and journalism”.
He said, “Free, fair and transparent journalism in Jammu and Kashmir continues to face strangulation more so after 5 August, 2019, and Indian Modi regime has no regard and respect for human rights voices of Kashmir, but more disgracing aspect of this period is that the national press in this RSS brand system has lost sense of fair and honest analysis of the developments in the valley of suffocation, trials and tribulations.
Young Kashmiri writers, columnists, photo journalists and students of journalism are shown door to prisons. Sometimes writers are pressurized to become kings witnesses against their colleagues or face baseless criminal charges of treason and sedition. Kashmiri press has no right to dissent, the newspaper offices have been turned into advirtisement centres or to publish government handouts.—KMS
