Free speech was being suppressed in Kashmir for a long time before the latest crisis

14 Aug 19 | Magazine, News and features, Volume 48.02 Summer 2019

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When the Indian government revoked Article 370 of the constitution, which had guaranteed Jammu and Kashmir autonomy, in early August 2019 there began a news blackout in the region.

Television, telephone and internet links were cut, opposition leaders arrested and no one knew what was happening. Many local journalists became uncontactable.

Early on a video of protests in Srinagar during the Eid festival which was posted by the BBC Urdu service – was condemned by the Indian government as “fake news”.

Now, a little more news has begun to trickle out.

However even before the current crisis, it was difficult to get news out of Jammu and Kashmir. For  many years, stringent restrictions on freedom of expression had become a way of life in this troubled border state.

Mobile phone signals were often blocked, and the internet was regularly turned off.

This had affected journalists’ ability to cover the region properly and meant that it was hard to get any impartial news out of the area.

Index spoke to academics and residents in July 2019 about what happened before the current crisis imposed.

For those living and working in this border state, forced co-existence with the army had become a way of life. Generations of Kashmir’s children have grown up in the shadow of the gun. The normalisation of the cheek-by-jowl existence with the armed forces, posted in the state to maintain peace, has been bitterly criticised time and again by human rights activists. In December 2018, Amnesty International observed: “A worrying pattern is emerging in Kashmir where security forces are increasingly using indiscriminate and excessive force against civilians.”

A recent report, that India rejected as “false and motivated”, by the UN Human Rights Council stated that the suppression of human rights continued unabated in the region following the Pulwama attack. (A militant attack on a police convoy on the Jammu–Srinagar highway in February 2019 in Kashmir’s Pulwama district had led to the deaths of 40 people.)   

“In no other state will you see more faujis [soldiers] than residents,” said Asif Iqbal (name changed for his safety), a hotel manager in the town of Kangan, in the Ganderbal district. Even peaceful protests by locals result in disproportionate violence, he claims.

He says to live in “constant fear” of the ever-present military, wary of phones being tapped, is also censorship.

In Jammu and Kashmir, local journalists say there are particular challenges they face while reporting conflict.

“It’s like walking on the edge of a sharp sword,” one of them, Bilal Hussain, told Index. This is a sentiment that resonates with others reporting from there. Hussain is referring to the balance commentators from Kashmir have to strike to appear neutral while highlighting problems faced by locals in this border state with one of the world’s largest military presences and a regimented way of life. 

Repeated attempts by Index to contact Hussain after the revocation of Article 370 have failed. His phone remains out of reach as of 23 August.

Journalists say they are quick to be labelled as working against the nation’s interest and harassed if the state perceives there to be even the slightest hint of sympathy in what they write towards those resisting Indian rule. Meanwhile, they run the risk of being labelled as statists by separatists if they hold up the state’s established position on the territorial sovereignty of Kashmir.

It’s a conflict that has widowed women, radicalised young men, killed children caught in the crossfire between armed forces and protesters, and blinded youths due to the use of pellet guns. Cross-border terrorism has taken the lives of hundreds of soldiers posted to the region, drawn from villages and towns in other parts of the country. India blames neighbouring state Pakistan of harbouring militants — a claim Pakistan denies — who routinely launch attacks on Indian forces after crossing the border.

Iqbal said: “People just want their rights. Even for peaceful protests, tear gas and pellet guns are used, whereas in every other state police only use lathis [wooden sticks]. We’re afraid to [go] out alone after 8.30pm or 9pm without a security escort for fear of being detained by the police.” Pellet guns were introduced in 2010 to subdue mass street protests.

A recent study by the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS), a human rights organisation, found that between January and June this year a total of 271 people were killed – 108 from the Indian armed forces, 43 civilians and 120 militants – in an escalation of violence following the Pulwama attack.

Kashmiri scholar Sheikh Showkat Hussain, who teaches international law and human rights at the Central University of Kashmir, says censorship of the press has affected the people’s right to self-determination. “In order to crush the resistance, [the government] restricts the media, they restrict the information, social media and the internet. Local dailies are denied advertisements,” he said. In 2010, he says, there was censoring of electronic press in the state followed by a freeze on government advertising – the same year some local daily titles refused to publish some of his columns, “possibly fearing backlash from the government” for giving his views a platform.

In the absence of a private sector in Kashmir, newspaper ads become a tool for those in power to control the narrative. Newspapers are mainly dependent on government advertisements and are incapacitated when the establishment puts a freeze on them.

“Indian media remains indifferent to the plight of Kashmiris,” Hussain said. “The root of alienation is denial of rights.” In recent months, as a precursor to the takeover, two of Kashmir’s newspapers had stopped getting government ads and there was a crackdown on local press following the re-election of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s right-wing government.

Ghulam Jeelani Qadri, the publisher of the Urdu-language newspaper Daily Afaaq, was arrested in June over a case dating back to 1990, when Qadri published a statement by a militant group.

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Journalist Aasif Sultan was arrested last year and is still in custody. Sultan had written a story commemorating the second anniversary of the death of Buhran Wani, a commander of the pro-Pakistan militant group Hizbul Mujahideen. His death had triggered protests in the Kashmir Valley.

But the situation is worse for women in Kashmir, who fight several layers of discrimination. 

An independent female journalist in Pulwama district, said: “As a Kashmiri, you cannot not be neutral, but … you will be attacked by one side or the other – considered either a separatist or a statist. You are balancing a thin line.” She speaks of friends incarcerated by the police under the controversial Public Safety Act – a law that has been condemned by rights organisations as a political tool to curb dissent.

“Being a Kashmiri woman, there is a layered and structural institutionalisation of patriarchy – first we are women, then Muslim, then we are in a conflict zone… when you go out you don’t know if you will come back or not,” she said.

Kashmir is a largely conservative society with a majority-Muslim population, and women still face many curbs. Although the trend is slowly shifting, they are not encouraged to take up careers in journalism, for example. “Even now, a girl with a camera is still a shock for many people in the suburbs,” said the woman journalist. (One of the justifications given by the government for revoking Article 370 has been the restitution of the rights enjoyed by women elsewhere in India.) “We are now often prone to censoring ourselves — How is this going to impact me? Is any story worth my life?”

She says that in a recent election to the Kashmir Press Council, not a single woman was encouraged to contest.

After every violent incident in Kashmir, the government shuts down the internet to stop the spread of rumours and propaganda. A report by the Software Freedom Law Centre, which tracks internet shutdowns in India, found that the authorities were disconnecting the internet at a rate of 10 times a month in Jammu and Kashmir.

“After the Amarnath row [when protests broke out over the transfer of land to the cave shrine of Amarnath], for a year our pre-paid sim cards did not work, and SMS services were blocked for six or seven months. Even now, three or four days a week the internet remains suspended,” she said.

As with Hussain, Index has not been able to contact the female journalist following the lockdown in Kashmir and is concerned about naming her.

After the communication blockade, people were reported to be queuing outside government offices for hours for just two-minute phone conversations with family members outside Kashmir.

However, not all journalists conversant with Kashmir’s politics hold the same view on the militarisation of the region. Some consider it necessary to keep at bay arch-rival Pakistan and militants that allegedly train across the border to launch covert operations against India. 

“Kashmir isn’t just another border with free access or marked boundaries at all locations,” said Aditya Raj Kaul, a Srinagar-born editor who covers strategic affairs and internal security for a business media network. “For the last few decades, state-sponsored terrorism from Pakistan has led to violence and chaos in the state which has further resulted in killings of several journalists, writers and activists. For instance, in recent times several political activists actively campaigning for democratic polls have been gunned down by terrorists.

Referring to the founding editor of Srinagar-based newspaper Rising Kashmir, who was gunned down outside his office, Kaul added: “Shujaat Bukhari was killed by terrorists last year just after he returned from Dubai, where he was participating in a peace summit. Similarly, several journalists and writers face pressure from radical elements to tow a particular line against the state or face consequences.

“There is a fear [and] psychosis created by local politicians for their vested interests. Local media in Kashmir that have been found critical of the state and the establishment haven’t faced any hurdles or threats to their livelihoods or professional lives.”

Senior journalist and author Shiv Aroor said: “The intention is to demilitarise as much as possible, but you have to remember that we are dealing with an unpredictable, insidious country on the other side – a country that has proven not to care about civilian life and continues a proxy war through militant groups which are frequently harming the local population and which has taken locals psychologically hostage. They are not allowing things to normalise, and eventually it becomes a vicious circle in which all incentive for economic progress of the region is not being allowed to take hold.”

There are pockets in Kashmir’s tentative border where commercial interests have defied the terrorists, but trade is disrupted every time there’s an incident or a border skirmish.

“You are facing an international threat here. It’s a question of sovereignty …When there are visible attempts to take control of [Indian] territory, you need the army to have boots on the ground because Kashmir is unlike any other border,” said Aroor, who has covered the Indian military for more than a decade.

“Living in a militarised area is oppressive. Nobody wants to live like that,” he added, but in the face of stone-pelting by youths, the army and the police often have to make split-second decisions to protect not just themselves but the lives of civilians and stop the possibility of an escalation of violence.

As Kashmir remains tense, civil rights activists are keeping up their pressure on the government to open up communication lines — a goodwill measure that they say will help gain back the trust of the Kashmiri people.

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Rituparna Chatterjee is a freelance journalist based in New Delhi

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”How governments use power to undermine justice and freedom” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fwww.indexoncensorship.org%2F2019%2F06%2Fmagazine-judged-how-governments-use-power-to-undermine-justice-and-freedom%2F|||”][vc_column_text]The summer 2019 Index on Censorship magazine looks at the narrowing gap between a nation’s leader and its judges and lawyers.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][vc_single_image image=”107686″ img_size=”full” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2019/06/magazine-judged-how-governments-use-power-to-undermine-justice-and-freedom/”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”Subscribe” font_container=”tag:h3|text_align:left”][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][vc_column_text]In print, online. In your mailbox, on your iPad.

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Cricket cheering uncovers faultlines between Kashmir and India

13 Mar 14 | India, News and features, Pakistan

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Improbable as it may seem, but 67 Kashmiri university students were briefly charged with sedition for cheering for Pakistan, and celebrating its win over India, during an Asia Cup cricket match in early March.

Sections of the Indian Penal Code that they were charged under were the following:

Section 124a – “Whoever by words, either spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representation, or otherwise, brings or attempts to bring into hatred or contempt, or excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards the Government established by law..”

Section 153 – “Whoever malignantly, or wantonly by doing anything which is illegal, gives provocation to any person intending or knowing it to be likely that such provocation will cause the offence of rioting to be committed shall..”

Section 427 – “Whoever commits mischief and thereby causes loss or damage to the amount of fifty rupees or upwards..”

The students were watching the match in Meerut, at the Swami Vivekanand Subharti University when the ruckus started. According to conflicting reports, the hooting of the Kashmiri students at Pakistan’s win caused those supporting India to chase them and throw stones at their rooms. The Kashmiri students protested the next day, but the university officials suspended them for three days as “resentment was growing in other hostels because of their behavior.” The police charged them under the Indian Penal Code. After a public outcry, the Uttar Pradesh police dropped the charges, however, there is a battle of words between the police and university officials as to who initiated the charges against the students.

The incident, once again, has exposed the fragile faultlines between Kashmir and India – and the perceived disloyalty of the Kashmiri Muslims to India. The controversy has brought about some harsh reactions, including a tweet by famous lyricist Javed Akhtar that said – “Why the suspension of those 67 Kashmiri students who cheered Pakistan is revoked. They should be rusticated and sent back to Kashmir.” Others, like Shivam Vij, took a more nuanced position, stating that, “not taking action against them would have escalated the violence at the university and in the city. The Indian students at the university were responding with the same sentiment that makes Kashmiri Muslims suspect their Hindu minority: the sentiment of nationalism. How acceptable would it be to a Pakistani if some in Pakistan openly and publicly cheered for the Indian cricket team in a match against Pakistan?”

Tidbits from Kashmir also help cement this view of the Muslims from the Kashmir Valley to the rest of India. Reports that firecrackers celebrated Pakistan’s win all night, and that a skirmish between Indian army personnel and local Kashmir youth celebrating the results of the match ended in a stabbing. There have also been defiant editorials from Pakistan countering the action against the students, declaring that, “it is not the win of Pakistan but the loss of India against any cricket playing nation that revives interest for cricket in Kashmir. India’s loss is a temporary relief from all the melancholy and grief that the people of Kashmir go through on a daily basis, inflicted by the Indian state and its military architecture.”

While this incident in question might have, on the surface, been about cricket and extremely ungentlemanly behavior, very quickly it seemed to have translated into politics as usual. A outcry about serious charges against university students – Kashmiris who had travelled far from home to obtain an Indian degree – was raised by many Indians in the media, by the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, and international groups. Many of these students were in Meerut given under the PMSSS, or the Prime Minister’s Special Scholarship Scheme, meant to enhance job opportunities for Kashmiri youth, meant mainly for low-income families. This is part of a larger drive to assimilate Kashmiri youth into the mainstream economic and educational life of India.

Indian Express’s Shekhar Gupta lamented the controversy given cricket’s globalized nature where it is increasingly normal to cheer for favourite player from another country. Instead he feels that “India’s majority has a minority complex” and this is coming to the fore “when the BJP is surging ahead, and not because of any mandir, tension with Pakistan, or rash of terror attacks. And when, in fairness, you have to acknowledge that there isn’t even a vaguely communal appeal in its leader Narendra Modi’s campaign message. India has had a 13-year period of total peace, unprecedented in its independent history. There has been a steep decline in terror incidents. Even the Maoists seem to be shrinking slowly. And yet, our level of jingoism is as if we were approaching an imminent war, as if India were under siege, its borders getting violated with impunity, the enemy at the gates.” Many echo Gupta’s view, fearing that those who believe the BJP under Narendra Modi will form government after the elections in April 2014, might be quick to adopt the jingoistic Hindu nationalism the party was based on.

Adding a layer to this incident is an interesting point of view offered by journalist Prayaag Akbar who writes about India’s many Muslims who feel affinity towards Pakistani cricket team, but are rarely called out for it, unlike the Kashmiri Muslims. He writes – “that some Indian Muslims, not just Kashmiris, support Pakistan during cricket matches must be acknowledged. But categorisation is self-fulfilling, some will say, and sport excites tribalism. It does not immediately follow—and this seems to be the consideration at the crux of the issue—that they will support Pakistan in a war against India. Yet it does not immediately follow that they will not, either. No one on either side of the debate can assert their position with complete confidence. What we can say with certainty is there has been a failure of assimilation, that has in part been caused by a rarely acknowledged, yet generally accepted, narrowed definition of what it means to be Indian.”

Cricket, criticisms and cartoons cannot be simply deemed seditious by the Uttar Pradesh police because they are problematic. And, ironically, this is in the shadow of the largest democratic exercise in the world, the Indian elections, a month away.

This article was published on March 13, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org

Index Index – International free speech round up 13/02/13

13 Feb 13 | Index Index

YouTube filed lawsuit against the Russian government on 11 February, to contest its latest cybercrime law to censor websites deemed harmful to children. The case was filed after Russian regulators decided to block a joke YouTube video entitled ”Video lesson on how to cut your veins =D,” which showed viewers how to fake slitting their wrists. Rospotrebnadzor, the federal service for consumer rights, said the video glorified suicide and was therefore illegal under the law enacted in November, which has been criticised for being vague and overtly broad. YouTube owners Google proceeded to restrict access to the video in Russia before the lawsuit was filed. In the first legal challenge made against the law, YouTube objected to the ruling in a statement released on 12 February, saying that the law should not extend to limiting access on videos uploaded for entertainment purposes.

Faisal Khan - Demotix

An Indian soldier stands alert in Srinagar, Kashmir during a curfew to curb protest over the hanging of Afzal Guru

A politician in Azerbaijan has offered a cash reward to any person who finds and cuts of the ear of an author who wrote a book about the conciliation of Azeris and Armenians, it was reported on 12 February. Akram Aylisli’s book Stone Dreams has stirred up controversy for referencing Azerbaijan’s violence against Armenians during riots preceding the collapse of the Soviet Union. The party of Hafiz Haciyev, the head of a pro-government political group in Azerbaijan have offered 10,000 manat (£8,000) for the ear of the writer, as part of a sustained hate campaign against Haciyev. He has been expelled from the Union of Writers, had his presidential pension revoked and his wife and son have lost their jobs. Protestors around the country have burned books and effigies of Haciyev. As Azerbaijan’s President, Ilham Aliyev approaches re-election later this year, the sustained negativity projected onto Haciyev is said to be a facade to hide the government’s internal issues amidst growing unrest.

Following protests in Kashmir over the execution of a man convicted of terrorism on 9 February, Kashmir’s internet and news outlets have been suppressed, and the entire Kashmir valley subjected to a strict curfew. Television channels and mobile internet were suspended immediately after Afzal Guru was hanged on 9 February. Local newspapers were forced to cease reporting the following day without warning — and have yet to be published since. Only the government, using state run service provider Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, has access to the internet. Some residential districts of Srinagar reported to receive some TV news channels on 10 February, but privately-owned channels had to suspend news services at the request of the government. Afzal Guru’s execution in a New Delhi prison on 9 February prompted protests in three areas of India administered Kashmir, surrounding claims the men accused were given an unfair trial. Guru was sentenced to death for helping to plot a 2001 attack on the Indian parliament that left 14 people dead.

In Somalia, a journalist has been detained without charge for defending press freedom, after a woman who claimed she was raped and the journalist who interviewed her were imprisoned. Daud Abdi Daud remains in custody since 5 February, after he spoke out in a Mogadishu court against the one year jail sentence given to Abdiaziz Abdinuur and the alleged rape victim on 5 February. Daud Abdi said journalists should be able to interview who they wish, saying he would make attempts to interview the president’s wife, causing the police to arrest him. Daud Abdi was later transferred from police custody into Mogadishu Central Prison. On 6 February, the attorney general ordered his continued detention at the Police’s Central Investigation Department.

Carmarthenshire County Council’s decision to pursue a libel case using public funding has been criticised. The council’s chief executive Mark James appeared in London’s Royal Courts of Justice today (13 February) where he and blogger Jacqui Thompson are suing each other for defamation following a series of comments posted online. James’s costs were indemnified by the council after a controversial decision in 2008, allowing public money to be used to fund libel lawsuits. Carmarthenshire County Council is believed to be the only authority to allow this in the UK, and the Welsh Assembly has questioned its legality, after an order they made in 2006 forbade local authorities from offering indemnities in libel cases. Carmarthenshire County Council said they had relied upon section 111 of the Local Government Act 1972, rather than the 2006 law. The case likely to cost a six or seven figure sum, according to reports.