Reporting on incidents relating to militants and militancy in Manipur is increasingly making life difficult for journalists here. The latest episode has been the death threat against the Imphal Free Press over a report about the killing of two suspected militants in an encounter that the newspaper carried last week. The threat has since been withdrawn but working conditions for journalists remain the same as ever.
The death threat stemmed from a report that the Imphal Free Press published about two suspected militants of the Kuki Revolutionary Army (KRA) being killed in an encounter with the police in the Langol Laimanai area of capital Imphal on July 26. The daily displayed the story prominently after it received a call from a person claiming to be a spokesman of the KRA who paid "revolutionary" tribute to the deceased.
The following day KRA issued a press note saying the two persons who had been killed had nothing to do with the organisation. It said the two were civilians who had not been killed in a shootout, but in cold blood by the police commandos after being arrested. The outfit also threatenedd Imphal Free Press editor with "capital punishment" after indicating that the call made to the newspaper had been a hoax.
The All-Manipur Working Journalists' Union (AMWJU) and the Editors Forum Manipur (EFM) condemned the death threat saying that such threats was against the freedom of press. A hurriedly convened meeting of AMWJU resolved that such threats created an atmosphere of terror and undermined the freedom of press apart from hindering the general freedom of expression. It also appealed to KRA to withdraw its threat.
EFM too, following a meeting, took a similar stand and appealed to KRA to withdraw its threat. It also reiterated that the journalist community of the state treated equally all the organisations of all communities and they did not have any biases.
Late on July 29, a person claiming to a spokesman of KRA called up AMWJU officials and said that the threat stood withdrawn.
As per the code of conduct laid down by AMWJU, any complaint against a journalist or newspaper should be directed to AMWJU (now under the responsibility of EFM) first and not directly to the journalist or newspaper concerned. KRA's death threat had disregarded the AMWJU code of conduct, the AMWJU meeting had sresolved.
Despite AMWJU's reminders to all the groups not to furnish any kind of information to a newspaper office or journalist through telephone, some were still doing so and mounting pressure on journalists/newspapers to give them due publicity, the meeting resolved. It also appealed to journalists /newspapers to strictly abide by the AMWJU code of conduct and not to entertain any information/news item given through phones.
This is the third time in as many months that the Imphal Free Press has been the target of militants.
The City Meitei faction of the Kengleipak Communist Party (KCP) held six Imphal-based newspaper editors hostage throughout the night on April 16 and forced them to publish a statement which they had previously ignored. The outfit had invited the editors on the pretext of holding a news conference. They were held captive at the same place till the following morning, when their newspapers finally published the statement in the form their captors wanted. The statement was about the outfit’s “raising day†celebration.
Before freeing the editors, the militants told them that they had clamped a ban on the Imphal Free Press for three months for misquoting an earlier statement. The AMWJU/EFM combine rejected the ban on the Imphal Free Press, and the newspaper continued publishing in defiance of the diktat. Civil society rallied behind the Imphal Free Press and other newspapers/ journalists, and a public meeting passed a resolution saying that the diktats on the press would be taken as a threat to society and if this continued then the people as a whole would meet the threats of the outfit.
A KCP(CM) commander on April 23 regretted the incident in a statement which also said that the refusal of newspapers to publish a statement of the outfit in full had raised the hackles of its mobile task force. Asserting that it would always respect the right and freedom of the press, the outfit urged the media too to view all armed groups and other organisations in the same light irrespective of its strength. It also lifted the ban on the Imphal Free Press.
