This is the first time I have had to begin an opinion column with both a journalistic disclosure and a legal disclaimer. But hey ho, these are dystopian times we live in.

The disclosure: I was one of 20 people who contributed expert reports for a recent legal submission to the British home secretary, Yvette Cooper, calling on her to end the proscription of Hamas as a terrorist organisation.

You can read my submission – on the significant damage done to journalism by Hamas’ proscription – here.

If, as widely expected, Cooper does not approve the application, prepared by the London-based Riverway Law firm on behalf of Hamas, within the 90-day time limit, her decision will be referred to an appeal tribunal for judicial review.

The disclaimer: Nothing that follows is intended in any way to encourage you to take a more favourable view of Hamas. It is not intended in any way to encourage you to support Hamas. It does not endorse opinions or beliefs that are supportive of Hamas, as set out in the submissions calling for the de-proscription of Hamas.

The danger is this: under Section 12 of Britain’s draconian Terrorism Act of 2000, if anything I write, however inadvertently, encourages you to think more favourably of a proscribed organisation like Hamas, I face up to 14 years in jail.

The purpose of this article is to show how the law and the establishment operate together to stifle legitimate criticism of the Israeli occupation.

The law is so loosely worded that the British government, supported by a counter-terrorism police seemingly only too eager to please, can potentially arrest anyone praising the work of Gaza’s public hospitals in saving lives because Hamas is in charge of the enclave’s government, or prosecute anyone, including media outlets, giving a platform to Hamas politicians trying to advance a ceasefire.

If all this sounds crazy, given both that stating facts should not be illegal and that I cannot possibly know how anyone might receive and feel about any information regarding Hamas, then you are starting to understand why the application to the home secretary is so urgent and important.

Secret meetings

The UK may have declared Hamas’ armed wing a terrorist organisation a quarter of a century ago, but its political and administrative wings were added to the proscribed list much more recently – in 2021.

Which is why Cooper, the current home secretary, was misleading in the way she dismissively responded to the de-proscription application submitted to her office. She told LBC: “Hamas has long been a terrorist organisation. We maintain our view about the barbaric nature of this organisation.”

It was Priti Patel who, as home secretary, added Hamas in its entirety, including its political and administrative wings, to the proscription list shortly after she was rehabilitated and readmitted to Boris Johnson’s government in 2019.

Two years earlier, she had been forced to resign from her post as international development secretary in disgrace.

Why? Because she was found to have held 12 secret meetings with senior Israeli officials, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, without disclosing those meetings to her colleagues and while she was supposedly on a family holiday.

It later emerged she had also secretly met other Israeli officials in New York and Westminster.

Patel’s political career, to put it politely, has been distinguished by an evident attentiveness to Israeli concerns.

Undoubtedly her decision to proscribe Hamas’ political and administrative wings, treating them as identical to the armed section of the organisation, was high on Israel’s wish list.

It instantly degraded Britain’s political discourse so that it became all but impossible to discuss Hamas’ rule in Gaza or Israel’s blockade of the enclave in a balanced or realistic way. It resulted in a simplistic black-and-white picture of life in the enclave in which everything Hamas was bad – and therefore, by contrast, everything Israeli was good.

That would spectacularly serve Israeli interests two years later, when, following the Hamas-led attacks on 7 October 2023, Israel fed the western media entirely fabricated stories of Hamas “beheading babies” and carrying out “mass rapes”.

For months afterwards, as Israel set about murdering Palestinians in Gaza en masse and levelling their homes, the only question media interviewers directed at anyone criticising Israel’s actions was this: “Do you condemn Hamas?”

Even the ever-swelling death toll figures recorded by Gaza’s health ministry – proven to be so reliable in previous Israeli attacks that international bodies and the Israeli military itself relied on them – were suddenly treated as suspect and inflated. Independent research continues to suggest otherwise.

Western media outlets appended “Hamas-run” to the health ministry, and its casualty figures – almost certainly a massive undercount given Israel’s systematic destruction of the health sector – were now reported only as a “claim”.

In turn, these deceptions were implicitly used to justify Israel’s own, far greater atrocities in killing and maiming hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, most of them women and children, destroying the enclave’s hospitals and supporting infrastructure, while at the same time starving the entire population.

Eighteen months on, “evil Hamas” is still the story, not Israel’s all-too-obvious genocide.

Bullied into silence

Concerns about Hamas being proscribed in its entirety – not just its armed wing – are far from hypothetical, given the expansive wording of the UK’s Terrorism Act since 2019, when it was amended.

In particular, a revision to Section 12 means that anyone who “expresses an opinion or belief that is supportive of a proscribed organisation”, and one that might “encourage support” for that organisation, is liable to arrest by terrorism police, prosecution, and up to 14 years in jail.

For expressing an opinion.

The wording is so vague that, for example, simply criticising Israel for committing greater and more numerous atrocities than Hamas could theoretically have the counter-terrorism police banging on your door.

To avoid prosecution, Riverway Law’s website dedicated to its application to the home secretary carries a legal disclaimer: “By entering this website you acknowledge that none of the contents can be understood as supporting, or expressing support for, proscribed terrorist organisations under the Terrorism Act 2000.”

Several independent British journalists and commentators – those whose careers are not dictated, and protected, by billionaires or the UK state broadcaster – have had their homes raided at dawn by counter-terrorism police or been arrested at the border as they return home.

One political commentator, Tony Greenstein – who also happens to be Jewish and a trained lawyer – is currently being prosecuted under Section 12 of the Terrorism Act. Others are under prolonged investigation. They have the threat of prosecution hanging over their heads like a sword.

The rest of us are meant to take note, feeling the chilling effect. Do we want the police breaking down the door of our homes at dawn? Do we want to be arrested on return from holiday, our partners and children looking on in horror?

The National Union of Journalists has called the police actions against journalists “abuse and mis-use of counter-terror legislation” and warned that they risk “threatening the safety of journalists”, as well as their sources.

Understandably, you may be barely aware of these repressive police tactics, which have been accelerating since Keir Starmer came to power. He, let us recall, personally approved, as opposition leader, Israel’s crime against humanity of blocking food, water and power to Gaza.

The BBC and the rest of the media have failed to meaningfully report these incidents – which are characteristic elsewhere of police states.

Is that because these media outlets are themselves cowed into submission by the Terrorism Act?

Or is it because they are simply mouthpieces of the same British establishment that made it illegal to express support for objectives which are the same as those sought by Hamas’ political, as opposed to military, objectives?

Let us remember – and it’s easy to forget, given how rarely such things are mentioned by the British media – that the same UK state that proscribed Hamas continues to arm Israel directly, helps ship weapons from other countries to Israel, supplies Israel with intelligence from British spy planes over Gaza, and provides Israel with diplomatic cover – all while Israel carries out what the International Court of Justice (ICJ) calls a “plausible genocide”, and while its sister International Criminal Court (ICC) seeks the arrest of Netanyahu for crimes against humanity.

The British government is not a neutral party in the levelling of Gaza, the decimation of its people by bombs, the ethnic cleansing of swaths of the enclave, or the starvation of the population. It is actively assisting Israel in its genocidal campaign.

The UK establishment is also, through its proscription of Hamas and the wording of the Terrorism Act, bullying journalists, academics, politicians, lawyers – in fact, anyone – into silence about the context of its complicity, into an unwillingness to scrutinise its rationalisations for collusion in genocide.

‘No civilians’

There are two main objectives behind Riverway Law’s submission to the home secretary against Hamas’ proscription as a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The first concerns the proscription of the entire organisation by the British government. This is the part of the legal submission that has attracted most attention – and which has been used to vilify the lawyers involved

As barrister Franck Magennis has explained, Riverway’s hands were tied because Patel – now the shadow foreign secretary – added Hamas to the list as a single entity in 2021, making no distinction between its different wings. That meant the lawyers had no choice but to petition for the entire group to be deproscribed.

The government set the terms of the legal debate, not Hamas or its legal representatives.

Hamas’ lawyers accept that its military wing meets the definition of a terrorist organisation under the terms of the UK’s Terrorism Act. They argue this law casts the net so wide that any organisation using violence to achieve political ends is covered, including the Israeli, Ukrainian and British militaries.

The establishment media have tried to smear Riverway and its barristers as Hamas “stooges” and supporters of terrorism – amply illustrating why the case is so necessary.

An openly hostile interviewer for LBC appeared to think he had caught out Magennis in some kind of ethical or professional lapse because he chose to represent Hamas without payment – as he must do under UK law because Hamas is a proscribed organisation.

The implication was that Magennis was so enthusiastically supportive of terrorism that he was willing to take on time-consuming and career-damaging work for free – rather than that he is doing so because there are vitally important legal and ethical principles at stake.

Not least, the proscription of Hamas’ political wing, including its governmental and administrative institutions, treats them as extensions of the armed struggle.

It breathes life into Israel’s patently ridiculous claims that all of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are really “Hamas command and control centres”, that Gaza’s doctors can be killed or arrested and taken to torture camps because they are “Hamas operatives” in disguise, and that Gaza’s paramedics can be executed because their rescue missions supposedly aid Hamas.

And worse, ultimately proscription supports Israeli leaders’ genocidal statements that there are “no civilians in Gaza”, a place where half the population are children.

Bargaining chips

The proscription of Hamas in its entirety ignores the fact that the group has political goals – ones Gaza’s population voted for 19 years ago to liberate themselves from decades of Israel’s brutal and illegal military occupation. Those goals are distinct from Hamas, yet expressing support for the objectives gives rise to the risk of being investigated by the police and prosecuted by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).

Gaza’s people – the less than half who were old enough to vote two decades ago – were driven down the path of supporting armed resistance in the pursuit of national liberation for an all-too-obvious reason. Because Israel had refused to make any concessions to Hamas’ political rivals, headed by Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank.

Abbas, head of the Palestinian Authority, has been using strictly diplomatic means – which Israel also opposes – to achieve statehood.

The proscription of Hamas sweeps out of view the fact that a people under occupation have a right enshrined in international law to use armed struggle against their military oppressors. It makes it perilously dangerous to show support for the armed struggle of Gaza’s Palestinians lest you are accused of breaching Section 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000.

Proscription sanctions the failure by western politicians and media to distinguish between Hamas actions on 7 October 2023 that accord with international law, such as its attacks on Israeli military bases, and illegitimate actions targeting Israeli civilians.

It reverses reality, treating all those Israelis held in Gaza as hostages who have been kidnapped, even those who are soldiers, while approving of Israel’s kidnapping of Palestinians in Gaza, from medical staff to children.

The latter are supposedly “arrested”. They are referred to by the western media as “prisoners”, even though most have not been charged or put on trial, and the main purpose of their detention seems to be as bargaining chips in an exchange for Israelis captive in Gaza.

And finally, since 2021, Britain’s proscription of Hamas’ political wing has effectively meant the UK has given its backing both to Israel’s refusal to talk to Gaza’s government, and to Israel’s near two-decade-old siege of Gaza that turned it into little more than a concentration camp holding 2.3 million Palestinians, further radicalising the population.

British politicians should understand quite how self-defeating such an approach is. After all, it was only through talking to Sinn Fein, the political wing of the “terrorist” IRA group, that Britain was able to negotiate a peace deal, the Good Friday Agreement, in Northern Ireland in 1998.

Hamas stated in its revised 2017 charter that it is ready to make territorial concessions with Israel – based on the traditional two-state solution.

And it does so again in its application to the home secretary, calling the two-state solution the “national consensus” among Palestinians.

The submission notes that Israel has repeatedly assassinated Hamas leaders, including Ahmed Jabari and Ismail Haniyeh, when they were close to concluding ceasefire agreements, in what looks suspiciously like attempts by Israel to undermine more moderate voices within the organisation.

Through proscription, Britain has handed Israel a permanent licence to refuse to test Hamas’ willingness to compromise.

Attack on lawyers

Robert Jenrick, Britain’s shadow justice secretary, has called for Riverway Law and its barristers to be investigated and struck off for representing Hamas – apparently forgetting the foundational principle in law that everyone, even serial killers, have a right to legal representation if the law is not to become a hollow charade.

The Terrorism Act includes provision for an appeal by proscribed organisations against their inclusion on the list. How are they to go through the legal procedure to appeal their listing apart from through lawyers?

Disgracefully, Starmer’s officials have once again kept their silence as Hamas’ legal representatives in the UK have been turned into targets for establishment abuse. The government is as complicit in the assault at home on basic democratic rights, such as free speech and the rule of law, as it has been complicit abroad in Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

How would the Starmer government have reacted had the two British barristers who defended Israel against South Africa’s case against genocide at the ICJ last year been publicly maligned for doing so? Would it have been okay to tar those lawyers with the crimes against humanity committed by their client?

Fahad Ansari, director of Riverway Law, has written to the government, urging it to speak up in defence of this team’s right to challenge Hamas’ proscription, and warning that Jenrick’s “comments are not only reckless and libellous but amount to incitement against our staff members”.

He has reminded the justice secretary, Shabana Mahmood, of the previous murder of lawyers for taking on cases that challenged the British establishment, including Pat Finucane, who was killed by Ulster loyalists in collusion with the British security services, after he won several human rights cases against the British government.

Hamas’ submission makes the case that Patel provided several false grounds to justify the proscription of Hamas in its entirety.

Hamas disputes Patel’s characterisation of it as a terrorist organisation. It notes that international law allows people illegally occupied and oppressed to resist through military means.

Hamas’ former political bureau chief Mousa Abu Marzouk notes in his witness statement on behalf of Hamas that Hamas’ operation on 7 October 2023 was intended only to strike military targets, and that atrocities carried out by its fighters that day against civilians had not been authorised by the leadership and are not condoned.

It is impossible to know whether that claim is true.

It is also incredibly hard to draw attention to factors which could be said to support Abu Marzouk’s argument without also being alleged to have invited support for Hamas or as expressing an opinion or belief that is supportive of Hamas – which would risk being accused of a criminal offence under Section 12.

In addition to the false stories spread by Israel, such as that Hamas “beheaded babies” and carried out “mass rape”, it is known that other, presumably less disciplined, groups broke out of Gaza that day as well as Hamas. Apparently no effort has been made to determine which groups carried out which atrocities.

And then there is the fact that an unknown number of the atrocities blamed on Hamas were actually caused by Israel’s green-lighting of its Hannibal directive, which authorised the Israeli military to kill its own soldiers and citizens to prevent them being seized. That included firing missiles into kibbutz homes and on vehicles heading towards Gaza, leaving only charred remains of the occupants.

The proscription of Hamas makes it legally dangerous to draw attention to the sickening acts of the Israeli government.

Also worth noting is that Hamas makes clear in its submission that, unlike Israel, it is ready to have its actions that day investigated by international bodies and any of its fighters who committed atrocities put on trial.

“We remain, as always, prepared to cooperate with any international investigations and inquiries into the operation, even if ‘Israel’ refuses to do so,” Abu Marzouk writes.

He calls on “the ICC Prosecutor and his team to immediately and urgently come to occupied Palestine to look into the crimes and violations committed there, rather than merely observing the situation remotely or being subject to the Israeli restrictions.”

Public demonised

Abu Marzouk points out that Britain is not a dispassionate observer of Israel’s genocide unfolding in Gaza. As the colonial power in Palestine for much of the first half of the last century, it permitted European Jews to colonise the Palestinian people’s homeland, effectively leaving the latter stateless.

“Unsurprisingly,” Abu Marzouk writes, “the British state continues to side with the genocidal Zionist coloniser, while proscribing organisations like ours that strive to assert Palestinian dignity.”

Which alludes to the second main purpose of Hamas’ application.

The British state has a legal obligation to prevent Israel’s current crimes against humanity and genocide in Gaza. And those in a position to shed light on Israel’s atrocities – and thereby add to the pressure on the British government and international bodies to fulfil their legal obligations – have a duty to do so too.

That means lawyers, journalists, human rights groups, academics and researchers should be as free as possible to contribute information and analyses that hold both Israel to account for its continuing crimes and the British state for any collusion in those crimes.

But as noted earlier, what Hamas’ proscription has done is precisely stifle expert discourse about what is happening in Gaza. Those who try to speak up, from independent journalists to lawyers, have found themselves vilified, bullied or threatened with prosecution by the British state.

Increasingly, this crackdown is being extended to the wider public.

Proscription has paved the way for the arrest and jailing of peace activist groups like Palestine Action trying to stop the UK-based arms manufacturer Elbit producing the quadcopters Israel is using to finish off civilians, including children, injured in air strikes on Gaza.

Proscription has paved the way for demonising mass public marches and student campus demonstrations against Israel’s genocide as pro-Hamas and “hate protests”.

Proscription has paved the way for the police to place ever-tighter restrictions on such demonstrations, to arrest the organisers, and to investigate prominent figures like Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell who take part in them.

“Rather than allow freedom of speech, police have embarked on a campaign of political intimidation and persecution of journalists, academics, peace activists and students over their perceived support for Hamas,” the application argues.

But while those opposed to genocide find themselves maligned as supporters of terrorism, those actually committing crimes against humanity – whether Israeli leaders or British nationals taking part as soldiers in the genocide in Gaza – are still being welcomed in Britain with open arms.

UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy met his Israeli counterpart, Gideon Saar, in London last month for a so-called “private meeting”. The British government apparently agreed to Saar’s visit, even though it must have known it would trigger requests from legal groups for his arrest for war crimes.

British officials have also hosted senior Israeli military figures.

Meanwhile, a legal dossier handed to the Metropolitan Police last month against 10 Britons accused of committing war crimes in Gaza, such as killing civilians and aid workers, has made barely any ripples.

Where is the outrage meted out by the media and politicians for Britons who have chosen to travel to Gaza to fight with an army that has killed and maimed many tens of thousands of Palestinian children there?

There is more to say, but saying more risks arrest by the UK’s counter-terrorism police and jail time. Which is why ending Hamas’ proscription needs to happen as soon as possible.

And why the British establishment, from politicians to the media, are so determined to close ranks and foil the application.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Jonathan Cook.

“Since Prime Minister Modi came to power in 2014, there has been an increasing crackdown on India’s media,” said CPJ President Jodie Ginsberg. “Journalists critical of the government and the BJP party have been jailed, harassed, and surveilled in retaliation for their work. India is the world’s largest democracy, and it needs to live up to that by ensuring a free and independent media–and we expect the United States to make this a core element of discussions.”

On Wednesday, June 14, CPJ convened an online panel, “India’s Press Freedom Crisis,” with opening remarks and moderation by Ginsberg alongside panelists Geeta Seshu, founding editor of the Free Speech Collective watchdog group; Anuradha Bhasin, executive editor of the Kashmir Times newspaper; and Shahina K.K., senior editor for Outlook magazine.

The panelists discussed the deterioration of press freedom over the last decade, with Seshu detailing the rise in censorship and “vicious” attacks on the media, while Shahina shared her ongoing battle to fight terrorism charges filed nearly 13 years ago by the Karnataka state government, then led by Modi’s BJP party, in retaliation for her investigative reporting.

Bhasin spoke about the “effective silence” that Kashmiri journalists have dealt with since the Modi government unilaterally revoked Jammu and Kashmir’s special autonomy status in 2019, with multiple cases of reporters being detained and interrogated.

CPJ calls on the U.S. government to urge India to act on the following press freedom violations:

• The ongoing detention of six journalists–Aasif Sultan, Gautam Navlakha, Sajad Gul, Fahad Shah, Rupesh Kumar Singh, and Irfan Mehraj–in retaliation for their work. All have been targeted under draconian security laws. Shah faces trial on spurious terrorism charges in relation to a 2011 article published by his online magazine The Kashmir Walla. The other five journalists remain in pretrial detention.

• The harassment of the domestic and foreign media, including routine raids and retaliatory income tax investigations launched into critical news outlets. In February, income tax authorities raided the BBC’s offices in Delhi and Mumbai after the government censored a critical documentary on Modi by the broadcaster. Foreign correspondents say they have faced increasing visa uncertainties, restricted access to several areas of the country, including Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir, and even threats of deportation in retaliation for critical reporting in recent years.

• The media crackdown in Kashmir, including the use of preventative detention, terrorism and criminal cases, travel bans, raids, and summons for questioning in retaliation for journalists’ work. In 2020, the government enacted a stringent media policy outlining powers for authorities to accredit the media, distribute government advertisements, and determine what constitutes “fake news.”

• Ongoing impunity in cases of killed journalists. At least 62 journalists have been killed in India in connection with their work since 1992. India ranked 11th on CPJ’s 2022 impunity index, with unsolved cases of at least 20 journalists killed in retaliation for their work from September 1, 2012, to August 31, 2022.

• Digital media restrictions, including using the IT Rules, 2021, to censor critical journalism, including the BBC documentary on Modi. India led the world in internet shutdowns for the fifth year in 2022, impeding press freedom and the ability of journalists to work freely.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

“The dialogue should be an opportunity for the EU to raise press freedom abuses with the Indian government, led by the Hindu right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). However, statements from previous dialogues have been limited in scope,” said Tom Gibson, CPJ’s EU representative.

“As India seeks to gloss over its abysmal press freedom record, the EU must unequivocally condemn its harsh crackdown on journalists and media organizations, and make clear, verifiable demands, including the release of arbitrarily detained journalists,” added Gibson. “The EU should question what type of relationship it is building if critical journalists in India and Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir cannot report without risking harassment, detention, abuse, or even death.” 

Gibson also called on the EU to press India for action on the following press freedom violations and attacks on journalists documented by CPJ:

• Authorities’ use of the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act, a preventive detention law, to keep Kashmiri journalists Aasif Sultan, Fahad Shah, and Sajad Gul behind bars after they were granted court-ordered bail in separate cases.

• The ongoing pretrial detention of Gautam Navlakha, Anand Teltumbde, Siddique Kappan, and Manan Dar under India’s draconian anti-terror Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.  Navlakha and Teltumbde are detained in “anda” (“egg”) cells, akin to solitary confinement, according to news reports.

• Indian authorities’ use of politically motivated charges to imprison journalists and its denunciation of critical journalists as attackers of traditional Hindu values. In June 2022, Delhi police arrested outspoken Muslim journalist Mohammed Zubair, himself an advocate against hate speech and disinformation, for a satirical tweet. On July 12, 2022, the Uttar Pradesh police formed a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe six cases registered against Zubair in the state, according to news reports.

• Full investigation into the deaths of five journalists killed in India because of their work in 2021 and prosecution of anyone implicated in the killings.

There are particular risks facing journalists from minority communities, including Muslims, when reporting on sectarian discrimination and violence. At least 20 female Muslim journalists were listed “for sale” in the notorious Bulli (derogatory slang for Muslim women) Bai (a female servant) app, according to CPJ research. A January 2022 investigation by The Wire found that female journalists and others were victims of online abuse through Tek Fog, an app said to be used as a propaganda tool by BJP-affiliated operatives.

CPJ’s 2021 annual prison census found that seven journalists were detained in India and Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir as of December 1, 2021, setting the country’s record for the highest number of detained journalists since at least 1992.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Erik Crouch.

Reporting in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir has become so difficult that dozens of Kashmiri journalists have fled the valley in recent months, fearing they will be the government’s next targets, three journalists told CPJ on the condition of anonymity due to fear of reprisal.  Gul, a journalism student and trainee reporter at the independent online news portal The Kashmir Walla who was initially arrested for tweeting a video of a protest, is one of three journalists targeted amid the recent Public Safety Act crackdown.

Police have since re-arrested two other journalists — Fahad Shah, founder and editor of The Kashmir Walla, and Aasif Sultan, a journalist with the independent monthly magazine Kashmir Narrator — under the law after they were granted court-ordered bail in separate cases.

The re-arrests follow the government shutdown of the Kashmir Press Club, the largest elected trade body representing the region’s journalists, in January.

The following month, an executive magistrate issued an arrest warrant for Gowhar Geelani, a prominent Kashmiri writer and commentator, on grounds of preventative detention to keep the peace. A self-identified “civil society” group plastered “wanted” posters in south Kashmir’s Pulwama district offering a reward for information on Geelani, who has gone underground, a local correspondent for a news magazine, who is familiar with his case, told CPJ on the condition of anonymity due to fear of reprisal.

On April 17, officials with the newly created State Investigation Agency (SIA), tasked with investigating terrorism cases, arrested research scholar Abdul Aala Fazili for an opinion article published in The Kashmir Walla in 2011.

The arrests and harassment of Kashmiri journalists follow the resurgence of the Hindu right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2014, following the election of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Intent on converting India from a secular democracy to a Hindu rashtra (nation), the BJP-led government has worked to extend its dominance over Muslim-majority Kashmir through heavy militarization as well as arbitrary detentions and crackdowns on freedom of expression. By targeting the local press, the government seeks to tighten its control over the narrative surrounding its human rights abuses in Kashmir, two of the journalists who requested anonymity told CPJ.

Sambit Patra and Syed Zafar Islam, national spokespeople for the BJP, did not respond to CPJ’s requests for comment sent via messaging app. Dilbag Singh, director-general of the Jammu and Kashmir police, also did not respond to requests sent via messaging app. The offices of Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha and India’s Home Ministry, which oversees the Jammu and Kashmir administration, did not respond to emailed requests for comment.

In 2017, the government began targeting Kashmiri journalists under the anti-terror Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), which carries harsh bail provisions. At age 22, photojournalist Kamran Yousuf was the first Kashmiri journalist detained under the law, from September 2017 until March 2018. In March 2022, a court finally discharged him of the UAPA terror funding allegation due to lack of evidence.

Sultan was also arrested under the UAPA, in August 2018, after he published an article in the Kashmir Narrator on Burhan Wani, leader of the armed Hizbul Mujahideen group, whose killing by Indian security forces in 2016 sparked massive anti-government protests. The case against Sultan, who is accused of “harboring known terrorists,” has been marred by procedural delays and evidentiary irregularities.

Sultan was finally granted bail in the UAPA case on April 5, but he was held at a police station in Srinagar for five days without legal basis before being re-arrested under the Public Safety Act. He is now detained in a jail in Uttar Pradesh, which is experiencing a massive heat wave.

After the BJP-led government’s unilateral revocation of Jammu and Kashmir’s special autonomy status in August 2019, Kashmiri journalists faced significant obstacles when authorities imposed an internet shutdown and communications blackout. 4G access was not officially restored until February 2021. Authorities have shut down the internet in various areas of Kashmir at least 25 times this year, according to the digital blackout monitoring website InternetShutdown.in.

Meanwhile, legal harassment, threats, physical attacks, and raids on the homes of journalists and their family members have become the new norm. In 2020, the government introduced a stringent media policy that presented new guidelines on media accreditation and empowered the government to determine what constitutes “fake news.”

Online archives of local newspapers are disappearing as well, in what freelance journalist Aakash Hassan called an “erasure of memory” in a phone interview. While some archives were deleted because publications did not pay maintenance fees, others were removed in response to government pressure, two of the journalists who requested anonymity told CPJ.

Still, the use of the Public Safety Act to keep the three journalists locked up marks a disturbing new trend. While authorities have repeatedly used the law against Kashmiri human rights defenders and political leaders, CPJ has documented only one prior use against a journalist: Qazi Shibli, editor of the independent news website The Kashmiriyat, who was detained for nine months without trial from July 2019 to April 2020.

“The PSA was slapped against [Gul] only to keep him in jail after the court granted him bail,” Shah told The Wire news website prior to his own arrest just weeks later. Police first arrested Shah on February 4, on accusations of sedition and violating the UAPA. He was then trapped in a cycle of arrest, court-ordered bail, and re-arrest involving years-old criminal cases in which The Kashmir Walla and other journalists associated with the outlet, though not Shah, had been accused. On March 14, police arrested Shah for the fourth time in 40 days, under the Public Safety Act. He has since been moved to Kupwara district jail, about 80 miles from his family.

On April 17, SIA officials and police raided Shah’s home and the office of The Kashmir Walla. The police report against Fazili led to the opening of an additional terrorism investigation into the unnamed editor of The Kashmir Walla and an unspecified number of other unnamed people associated with the news site.

Since its founding in 2009, the outlet had shut down three times due to lack of funding, interim editor Yashraj Sharma told CPJ in a phone interview. “The economic situation of independent media in Kashmir was always disappointing. Now, while we cling to hope of a speedy judicial process, we face a really uncertain future ahead of us,” Sharma said.

Journalists who spoke to CPJ denounced the recent use of the Public Safety Act, particularly the vague arguments given in the government’s detention orders, which CPJ reviewed. Authorities argued that extending Gul’s detention was necessary because he would otherwise be released on court-ordered bail.

The orders against Shah and Sultan deploy eerily similar arguments, accusing the journalists of “having a radical ideology right from your childhood,” “circulating fake news,” and “working against the ethics of journalism.” And although the police asserted that Sultan was not arrested in relation to his journalism in a response posted on Twitter to CPJ’s August 2020 advertisement on Sultan’s detention in The Washington Post, the detention order specifically cites his article on Burhan Wani.

“Even if you don’t commit any crime, they are sending the message that they can jail you anytime without any real case,” a freelance Kashmiri journalist told CPJ on condition of anonymity due to fear of reprisal.

The Kashmiri media “has reached a breaking point, where journalists are wondering whether it’s worth it to report from Kashmir,” said the journalist, who recently fled the valley due to fear of government retaliation. While hoping to continue his work or studies abroad, the journalist said he has been informed by police sources that he is on a government no-fly list.

About 22 Kashmiri journalists appeared on the no-fly list as of September 2021, according to The Wire. This is in line with the accounts shared with CPJ by numerous Kashmiri journalists, who have reported significant difficulties in traveling abroad, particularly to attend panels and award functions.

The persecution of Shah and Geelani, who have contributed to foreign-based media, demonstrates that “being associated with foreign outlets doesn’t guarantee you a degree of protection anymore,” said Raqib Hameed Naik, an independent multimedia journalist from Kashmir. After Hameed Naik fled abroad in 2020 following repeated intimidation by law enforcement, his family members in Kashmir have continued to face harassment and questions about his reporting, social media posts, and plans to return, he said.

Meanwhile, self-censorship prevails among Kashmiri journalists, with local newspapers refraining from reporting on the recent arrests due to fear of reprisal and cuts to government-funded advertisements, two of the journalists who requested anonymity told CPJ. Many write without bylines.

“Everyone is grappling with the single question,” Hameed Naik said. “Who is next on the list?”

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Sonali Dhawan.

The statement calls on authorities to release all journalists detained for their work, including Fahad Shah, Sajad Gul, and Aasif Sultan, who were granted bail but then re-arrested this year under the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act, a preventative detention law. The groups also expressed concern about the use of spurious terrorism and sedition charges against members of the press including journalist Siddique Kappan, who has been detained since October 2020.

The statement notes that journalists belonging to minority communities are particularly vulnerable to harassment and retaliation. In January, a demeaning fake auction app was taken offline after it listed at least 20 female Muslim journalists for “sale,” all of whom covered the BJP government’s policies affecting religious minorities.

The statement also expresses concern about the use of Pegasus spyware to monitor journalists’ digital communications. The Pegasus Project has identified more than 40 Indian journalists who appeared on a leaked list of potential targets for surveillance by the spyware, which is produced by the Israeli company NSO Group. In October 2021, the Supreme Court of India ordered a “thorough inquiry” on the government’s alleged use of Pegasus against journalists and others.

Read the statement here.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Erik Crouch.

The State Investigation Agency (SIA) in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir arrested Abdul Aala Fazili, a former contributor to privately owned news portal The Kashmir Walla, on Sunday, April 17, in relation to a November 2011 opinion article, according to news reports. The SIA and Kashmir police also raided The Kashmir Walla office, the home of editor Fahad Shah—who was arrested in March—and Fazili’s home, seizing electronic devices including laptops.

According to the Indian Express, the SIA claimed that Fazili’s 2011 opinion piece supporting Kashmir’s separation from the Indian state was “highly provocative, seditious and intended to create unrest” and written to propagate “the false narrative which is essential to sustain [a] secessionist cum terrorist campaign aimed at breaking the territorial integrity of India.” The SIA did not give any information as to why it was acting now on the article.

“The Jammu and Kashmir authorities’ vindictive campaign against journalists has reached the point of absurdity with the arrest of former Kashmir Walla contributor Abdul Aala Fazili and the opening of another investigation into editor Fahad Shah over an 11-year-old article,” said Steven Butler, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator, from Washington, D.C. “Indian authorities must drop its investigation into Fazili and Shah and immediately release them.”

Fazili is a former contributor to The Kashmir Walla who is currently a research scholar at Kashmir University, according to those news reports.

According to a statement by The Kashmir Walla, the SIA and Kashmir police raided Shah’s home and the outlet’s office for three hours on April 17. According to the outlet, officials seized two reporters laptops, a computer from the multimedia department, six hard drives, and five CDs. Officials also searched reporting notebooks and phones of two reporters who were present in the office during the raid.

The SIA accused Fazili and Shah of violating four sections of the Indian penal code, including criminal conspiracy, waging or attempting to wage war against the Indian government, sedition, and making assertions prejudicial to national integration, and two sections of the anti-terror Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) for unlawful activities and terrorism, according to The Kashmir Walla.

Under the UAPA, Fazili and Shah could face up to seven years imprisonment. If found guilty of violating the four sections of the penal code, they face a life sentence.

CPJ was unable to confirm Fazili’s current whereabouts. Shah is currently in preventive custody in Kupwara District Jail after he was granted bail in two investigations where he has been accused of violating the UAPA and other Indian laws, as CPJ documented and news reports.

Dilbag Singh, the director-general of the Jammu and Kashmir police, did not immediately respond to CPJ’s request for comment sent via messaging app. CPJ could not locate contact information for the SIA’s spokesperson.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

On March 2, police in Chhattisgarh’s capital Raipur arrested Sharma, editor of privately owned satirical news website Indiawriters.co.in, at his home, according to multiple news reports.

Separately, on Sunday, March 6, police in Jammu and Kashmir re-arrested Shah, editor of the privately owned news website The Kashmir Walla, hours after he was granted bail in another case, according to multiple news reports. This is the third time that Shah has been arrested since February 4, according to those reports and CPJ documentation.

Both journalists remained in detention as of Wednesday morning, according to those sources, and have been accused of cognizable offenses, which allow police to arrest them without a warrant and begin an investigation without the permission of a court.

“The rapidly growing number of journalist detentions reflects India’s utter intolerance for press freedom and peaceful criticism of the state,” said Carlos Martinez de la Serna, CPJ’s program director, in New York. “Authorities must immediately release Nilesh Sharma and Fahad Shah, drop their investigations into their journalistic work, and take steps to reverse the escalating criminalization of journalism.”

On March 2, Raipur police filed a first information report, which opens a police investigation, against Sharma based on a complaint filed by Khilawan Nishad, a member of the Indian National Congress, the ruling party in Chhattisgarh, according to independent newspaper The Indian Express. Nishad alleged that characters in Sharma’s satirical columns resembled the party’s ministers and legislators, driving a “wedge between ministers,” according to a copy of his complaint, which CPJ reviewed.

In the report, police accused Sharma of violating four sections of the Indian penal code pertaining to intentional insult to provoke breach of peace, publication of statements conducive to public mischief, publishing rumors, and publishing statements promoting enmity between classes, according to news reports and a copy of the first information report, which CPJ reviewed.

Each of those offenses can carry a prison sentence between two and three years, and an unspecified fine, according to the law.

On Monday, March 7, police claimed to have found “pornographic content” and “sensitive confidential documents” on Sharma’s phone and are now investigating him on additional counts of violating a section of the Information Technology Act pertaining to publication or transmission of material containing a sexually explicit act, and two sections of the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act pertaining to living on the earnings of prostitution and procuring or inducing prostitution, according news reports and a copy of a police statement, which CPJ reviewed.

If charged and convicted under the Information Technology Act, Sharma could face up to five years in prison and a fine of 1 million rupees (US$13,000), according to the law. The offenses under the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act can carry a prison sentence between two to seven years and a fine between 2,000 rupees (US$26) and 100,000 (US$1,300), according to the law.

CPJ emailed Chhattisgarh Police Director-General Ashok Juneja for comment but did not receive a reply. CPJ’s calls to Sharma’s family members went unanswered.

In Shah’s case, the Shopian judicial magistrate granted him bail on March 6, but Srinagar police again re-arrested Shah in relation to The Kashmir Walla’s reporting on a gun fight between armed forces and alleged militants in May 2020, according to a report by his outlet and Shah’s colleague at The Kashmir Walla, who spoke to CPJ on the condition of anonymity due to fear of retaliation by authorities.

Srinagar police registered an additional first information report against Shah on July 9, 2020, accusing him of violating five sections of the Indian penal code pertaining to rioting, attempted murder, printing or engraving matter known to be defamatory, statements conducing to public mischief, and abetment according to The Kashmir Walla.

The first four offenses can carry a prison sentence between two and 10 years and an unspecified fine, according to the law, which says that abetment carries the same punishment as committing an offense itself.

Jammu and Kashmir Police Director-General Dilbag Singh did not respond to CPJ’s request for comment sent via messaging app.

Police initially arrested Shah on February 4 for allegedly publishing “anti-national content,” and began investigating him for sedition and making statements causing public mischief under the Indian penal code and the anti-terror Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, as CPJ documented at the time.

On February 27, Shah was granted bail in that case, but Shopian police re-arrested him in relation to The Kashmir Walla’s reporting on alleged official pressure on a Kashmir school and began investigating him on provocation with intent to cause a riot and publishing statements conducive to public mischief, both crimes under the Indian penal code, as CPJ documented.

In February, 57 publications, press freedom groups, and human rights organizations including CPJ wrote a letter to Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha demanding Shah’s release, along with Sajad Gul, Aasif Sultan and Manan Gulzar Dar.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

On February 23, police in the northern state of Uttarakhand’s Pithoragarh district arrested Ram, a reporter with the privately owned news website Janjwar, according to news reports and Ram’s editor Ajay Prakash, who spoke to CPJ in a phone interview.

Separately, on Sunday, February 27, police in Jammu and Kashmir arrested Shah, editor of the privately owned news portal The Kashmir Walla, hours after he was granted interim bail in another case, according to news reports.

Both journalists remained in detention as of Tuesday evening, according to those sources.

“The arrest of Kishor Ram and re-arrest of Fahad Shah show India’s escalating intolerance toward journalists who are simply doing their jobs,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martínez de la Serna, in New York. “Authorities must immediately release Shah and Ram, drop any investigations into their journalistic work, and create a safe and free atmosphere for journalists to report the news.”

A police first information report, which CPJ reviewed, accused Ram of promoting enmity between castes in two articles: one featuring interviews with relatives of a murdered man in the Dalit community, the lowest strata of the caste system, and another that included an interview with the father of a Dalit girl who was allegedly raped.

Ram himself belongs to the Dalit community, and covers news and human rights issues affecting the community, according to Prakash and those news reports.

If charged and convicted of promoting enmity under the Indian penal code, Ram could face up to three years in prison and an unspecified fine.

CPJ emailed Uttarakhand Police Director-General Ashok Kumar for comment, but dd not receive any reply.

In Shah’s case, police previously arrested him on February 4 for allegedly publishing “anti-national” content, and began investigating him for sedition and making statements causing public mischief under the Indian penal code and the anti-terror Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, as CPJ documented at the time.

Shah was granted bail in that case on Sunday, but was then re-arrested in relation to The Kashmir Walla’s reporting on alleged official pressure on a Kashmir school, according to a report by his outlet.

Police accuse Shah of violating two sections of the Indian penal code in that reporting: provocation with intent to cause a riot, and publishing statements conducive to public mischief, according to The Kashmir Walla. Each of those offenses can carry a prison sentence between six months and three years and an unspecified fine, according to the law.

Similarly, police released The Kashmir Walla trainee reporter Sajad Gul on bail on January 15, but re-arrested him the following day in a separate case, according to news reports.

CPJ texted Jammu and Kashmir Police Director-General Dilbag Singh for comment, but did not receive any reply.

On February 14, CPJ joined 57 publications, press freedom groups, and human rights organizations in a letter to Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha demanding Shah’s release, along with Gul and journalists Aasif Sultan and Manan Gulzar Dar.

In an unrelated incident on February 7, Uttarakhand police commandeered a taxi Prakash had rented while covering local elections and, after he identified himself as a journalist and protested the seizure, police detained him for about nine hours, according to Prakash and news reports.

Police opened an investigation into Prakash for allegedly obstructing public servants from doing their jobs, according to the journalist and police documents reviewed by CPJ. If charged and convicted, he could face up to three months in prison or a fine of up to 500 rupees (US $7), according to the penal code.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Erik Crouch.