The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) welcomes the release from prison today of Iftikhar Gilani, New Delhi bureau chief for the Jammu-based newspaper Kashmir Times. Authorities had accused Gilani of possessing classified documents "prejudicial to the safety and security of the country," a charge they finally admitted was unsubstantiated. "Iftikhar Gilani's release is long overdue," said CPJ...
Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontières) welcomed the release today of Indian journalist Iftikhar Gilani but regretted that it came after seven months of detention without evidence and without trial. The organisation supported the request for compensation his lawyer plans to make to the government for the damage to his reputation as a journalist and his arbitrary detention. "This is a...
On 24 December 2002, RSF reiterated its call for the immediate release of detained Kashmiri journalist Iftikhar Gilani after a senior military officer told the judge in charge of the case that Gilani is innocent. On 23 December, officer O. S. Lochab, director general of the Indian military secret service, testified before Judge Sangita Dhingra Sehgal of the New Delhi Metropolitan Court that the...
Journalist Kumar Badal, of the investigative website Tehelka.com, has gone on a hunger strike to protest his continued imprisonment. Badar has been detained for more than one month. On 16 August 2002, RSF joined those in India who are speaking out against the government's policy of intimidating the investigative press. In a letter to Interior Minister Lal Krishna Advani, RSF Secretary-General...
The hearings resumed in the Geelani case on 18 June. The journalist had been remanded in custody for a further three days on 15 June. According to V.K Ohri, Iftikhar Geelani's lawyer, the documents seized from his client's home had been available on the Internet since 1993. Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontières) called today for the release of Kashmiri journalist Iftikhar Ali...
Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF-Reporters Without Borders) expressed its serious concern over the attempted murder of the journalist Zafar Iqbal in Srinagar. The organisation for the defence of press freedom has asked, in a letter sent today to the Chief Minister of the State of Kashmir, Dr Farooq Abdullah, for an investigation to be opened rapidly by the local police in order to identify the...
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) today sent a letter of inquiry to Dr. Vishnu Kant Shastri, governor of Uttar Pradesh State, India, requesting information about the April 14 death of journalist Paritosh Pandey. Pandey, a crime reporter for the Hindi-language daily Jansatta Express, was shot dead at point-blank range at around 10:30 p.m. in his home in the residential neighborhood of...
In a 17 May 2001 letter to Indian Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani, CPJ expressed its dismay over last week's brutal attack against journalists in Kashmir by members of India's Border Security Force (BSF). The organisation is, however, encouraged by the apparently swift and thorough BSF investigation, and hopes that it will yield concrete results. On 10 May, a group of seventeen journalists were...
In a 23 August 2000 letter to President Kocheril Raman Narayanan, WAN and the World Editors Forum expressed outrage at the murder of newspaper editor Brajamani Singh. According to reports, two gunmen broke into the house of Singh, editor of the English-language "Manipur News", late at night on 20 August, and shot him dead. No one has yet claimed responsibility for the killing, but police say they...
In a 20 April 2000 letter to Chief Minister Wahengbam Nipamacha Singh, CPJ noted that it is deeply disturbed by the imprisonment of Nongthonbam Biren, chief editor of the Manipuri-language daily "Naharolgi Thoudang", and Thounaojam Iboyaima, the author of a speech recently published in the newspaper. Biren and Iboyaima were arrested on 14 April in Imphal, the capital of Manipur State, and detained...
