Parachute Journalists From Delhi Ran A PR Operation For Military In J&K, Says International Media Watchdog Report

With a photojournalist 20-year-old Kamran Yousuf continues to be under National Investigation Agency’s custody and two photojournalists getting visually impaired due to pellet firing of the government forces, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), Asia Pacific, in its report, released Friday, has talked at length about the challenges of living and reporting in a conflict zone and vulnerability of Kashmiri journalists.

The international media watchdog has listed the challenges of living and reporting in a conflict zone like, balancing pressures from all sides, government, security forces, militants and the Kashmiri public and precarious working conditions, like, low wages, no job security, no medical, life or risk insurance as main issues confronted by journalists in the valley.

The report has highlighted banning of English daily, Kashmir Reader, for three months in 2016, blinding of two photojournalists, Mir Javed and Zuhaib Maqbool by pellets in 2016, and detaining of Kamran Yousuf without charge by NIA. Yousuf was picked up on September 5, 2017, by the NIA.

“The media in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) has walked the razor’s edge for the past 30 years, facing pressures from all sides of the conflict. While the territorial dispute and internal strife is decades old, since the 1990s, Kashmir has been in the throes of an armed insurgency, intense militarisation and arbitrary use of draconian laws. Journalists have had to survive by treading a tricky middle path, carrying out balanced reporting in a conflict situation in which they and their families live”, the report says. It says the media has suffered in the form of killings, direct attacks, intimidation, threats, and pressures from various quarters. “Twenty-one journalists have been killed due to the conflict – either directly targeted or caught in the cross-fire”, it says.

It says the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act which gives sweeping powers to military personnel, and public security laws like the Public Safety Act 1978 of Kashmir, which provides for detention without trial of persons –including journalists– for "acting in any manner prejudicial to security of state or maintenance of public order” are broad in scope and allow restrictions to be placed on the media.

The report says that journalists report being picked up and taken to Military Intelligence (MI) camps and interrogated, sometimes being detained with no charges. “Questions about their stories sometimes lead to self-censorship to minimise harassment to families who live in fear. The lack of support from employers seems to increase vulnerability”, it says.

It says press photographers are particularly at risk, since they rush to the spot of incidents even as they are unfolding. It cites an example of a photojournalist, 30-year-old Zuhaib Maqbool. Maqbool is blinded in one eye by pellets aimed at him and his colleague Muzamil Matoo, by the security forces in September 2016. “Multiple painful surgeries later, he is yet to fully regain his vision. His cameras costing about Rs 2 lakh which he calls his “eyes” were also damaged. Yet, they have no medical, risk or life insurance cover”, the report reads.

The report says the vulnerability of Kashmiri journalists, who live in the Valley, is much higher than “parachute” journalists from Delhi or international channels who visit for a few days and leave, with no stakes in life in the Valley. The report cites coverage of floods, which devastated Kashmir in 2014, as an example, saying the majority of the media outlets from New Delhi were operating from the military airbase in Srinagar. They were embedded and did not shy away from openly running a public relations operation for the military. It seems they were reporting for the military, and not for the flood victims.” “An extremely skewed picture emerged, with the Indian army, otherwise implicated in severe human rights violations, being portrayed as ‘saviours’ of hapless Kashmiris. Local media and international publications, however, presented a very different picture of the disaster and its aftermath. Al Jazeera, for example, ran an opinion piece “India turns Kashmir flood disaster into PR stunt”, contradicting the New Delhi-based media reports that the military had evacuated thousands of people from their submerged homes,” the report says.

The report says discrimination against local journalists is open “With names like Butt or Geelani, we are not issued passes,” said one journalist. Often, what amount to curfews in practice is termed ‘restrictions’ and passes are deemed unnecessary, but on the ground, the mobility of journalists is severely curtailed.

It quotes reporter about an incident when the military had restricted movement and residents were not allowed to come out of their houses, even if they were journalists. “Yet, the well-known Delhi-based journalist Barkha Dutt with NDTV did her piece-to-camera- from a military vehicle right outside his house!”

The report says low wages of journalists working with local newspapers is a serious issue.

“Although central government revenue (through the DAVP) has largely been curtailed, state advertising revenue to the tune of about Rs 32 crore was disbursed in the year 2016-2017. However, this was not reflected in the status of salaries or benefits to working journalists, many said. Some journalists felt that the government could exercise control not by censorship of content, but by making minimum standards, salaries and benefits mandatory and deny advertisement revenue to publications that did not comply,” the report reads.