The UN-observed International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists on Nov 2 marks the struggle for justice for the killings of scores of journalists across the world. The UN reports that, between 2006 and 2020, over 1,200 journalists have been killed for reporting the news and bringing information […]
On the occasion of the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists, observed annually on Nov 2 , Free Speech Collective focuses on the judgement of the Permanent People’s Tribunal on the killing of three journalists – Miguel Ángel López Velasco from Mexico, Lasantha Wickrematunge from […]
“Uncertain Justice: A Citizens Committee Report on the North East Delhi Violence 2020”, authored by a fivemember group comprising retired judges and civil servants gives the Committee’s findings on factors that contributed to the build-up to violence, features of the violence itself, the role of sections of the […]
UAPA: Criminalising Dissent and State Terror – Study of UAPA Abuse in India, 2009 – 2022, Excerpts from PUCL report on how the Indian state has weaponised the UAPA law against anyone who dares to challenge the Indian state and assert their fundamental rights to information, association, dissent […]
An FSC focus on journalists in custody . Time flies – yet it seems as if things are stuck in a terrifying time loop. It’s been over seven months since the arrest of prominent Kashmiri journalist, Fahad Shah. Shah is the editor-in-chief of The Kashmir Walla (TKW) and […]
More delay in the release of journalist Siddique Kappan! The bail application in the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) case came up today and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) filed its response to the bail application and sought an adjournment as Additional Solicitor General SV Raju was to […]
Journalist Siddique Kappan was produced before the National Investigation Agency (NIA) court in Lucknow today but, with stringent bail conditions – to get two local residents to stand surety persons with a cash bond of Rs One Lakh each – he went back to jail, while his lawyers […]
The Chief Justice of India UU Lalit asked a pertinent question about journalist Siddique Kappan, currently incarcerated in Lucknow jail on terror charges, one that should apply to all cases of journalists wrongly arrested for pursuing their professional work : Kappan, who was picked up by Uttar Pradesh […]
The Supreme Court of India issued notice to the Union Government on a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by Software Freedom Law Center, India (SFLC.in) challenging the imposition of Internet Shutdowns to prevent cheating in examinations in the five states of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, and West […]
The Supreme Court has posted the bail application filed by journalist Siddique Kappan for final disposal on September 9, 2022. The apex court issued notice on the petition filed by Kappan, challenging the rejection of his bail application by the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court on […]
Journalist Siddique Kappan moved a special leave petition before the Supreme Court of India challenging the rejection of his bail plea by the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court. On a plea moved on his behalf by Adv Haris Beeran, a bench presided over by the Chief […]
It is unfortunate that despite living in a political democracy for 75 years, Muslim organizations today are demanding a national blasphemy law.
This article has been republished with permission. Today’s censorship wars are part of the larger culture wars driven by white evangelical Christians, a large part of the Republican activist base. They are waging an apparently coordinated campaign against a woman’s right to determine her pregnancy, gay/transgender rights and […]
“Greetings Dear Audience, Happy Independence Day from my heart to all. I am daughter of Siddique Kappan, journalist put inside a dark cell violating all freedom of a citizen….” Journalist Siddique Kappan’s nine-year old daughter, Mehnaz, gave a moving speech on the meaning of freedom on the occasion […]
After more than 22 months in prison for merely travelling to the village of Hathras in Uttar Pradesh to cover a gang rape and murder of a Dalit woman, Kerala Journalist Siddique Kappan was told by Justice Krishna Pahal of the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court […]
His latest report was on the impact of smoke and ashes from the factories in the Girdih district of Jharkhand. Rupesh reported how factories in the area had led to health disasters in the area. By Vishad Kumar (Republished from GauriLakeshNews with permission) Jharkhand Police has arrested independent journalist […]
Additional Sessions Judge Devendra Kumar Jangala of the Delhi District Court granted bail to AltNews co-founder Mohammed Zubair and said that “free speech is the proper foundation of a democratic society.” Zubair was arrested on June 27, 2022 after an First Information report was registered against him by […]
Ranjeet Soni, 46 years old, was shot dead in broad daylight at around 5 pm on June 2, 2022. He was shot in the back of the head at point blank range within the premises of the office of the Public Works Department (PWD), Vidisha just outside the […]
The arrest of journalist and co-founder of the fact-checker site Altnews, Mohamed Zubair, on Monday, 27 June 2022, barely a day after the arrest of journalist and anti-communalism activist Teesta Setalvad, is a chilling indicator of the state of free speech in India. Till date, at least nine […]
Enacted by MeitY in May 2021, the Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code Rules 2021.sought to both protect ‘digital Indians’ from the harms of Big Tech intermediaries and regulate the work of online publishers….They have been challenged in nineteen separate cases across the country—with specific portions stayed by multiple High Courts. A common cause for concern: they exert a chilling effect on free speech in India.
Four journalists covering the Agnipath protests in Patna were detained by police after one of them, Amir Hamza, was roughed up and shoved by a police officer. Hamza, a journalist working with a newschannel on Youtube ‘The Activist’, was arrested and is yet to get bail. Of the […]
Republished from The Leaflet with permission Hate speech vitiates the very purpose of free speech, which is the free and fearless operation of a human mind that constantly seeks answers and the truth, says Ujjaini Chatterjee Contemporary Indian democracy is at a threshold of its constitutionalism. Amidst the […]
On World Press Freedom Day , May 3, 2022, this special focus from Free Speech Collective on journalists who are in jail. Download link available below:
On May 3, on the eve of World Press Freedom Day 2022, we present FEAR OF SPEECH A short film by students of Whistling Woods International, the film, communication and creative arts institute located in Mumbai, India, done in association with Free Speech Collective. Ziva, a young journalist, […]
Gutsy Dalit journalist and founder of digital news channel ‘ The Mooknayak’, Meena Kotwal, was threatened after she posted a video of herself symbolically burning a copy of the Manusmriti, the regressive, anti-caste and patriarchal book of Vedic laws. After a major struggle with the Ambedkar Nagar police, […]
Republished from The National HeraldJournalists in India have been stopped at the airport, attacked by hindutva forces while on duty, arrested for their investigative reports. Ashlin Mathew has a detailed summary. A week after journalist Rana Ayyub was stopped from flying to London, former head of Amnesty International […]
PRESS STATEMENT March 21st, 2022 The Editors Guild of India is shocked by the manner in which an Agra based journalist, Gaurav Bansal, was arrested and allegedly tortured for reporting about electoral malpractices in the recent assembly elections. While on one hand the journalist’s lawyer has alleged that, […]
Citing national security issues, the Union government had imposed a ban on television channel Media One and the company filed an appeal before the Kerala High Court. N P Chekkutty has this report. Calicut: Media One Channel, one of the top five television news channels in Malayalam with […]
Frequent summons, arrest of journalists is having a chilling effect on journalism students and aspiring journalists in Kashmir, writes Majid Maqbool The recent closure of Kashmir Press Club (KPC) by the government following its sudden takeover, and more recent summons and arrest of journalism student and trainee reporter […]
Justice Rajesh Singh Chauhan of the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court has admitted an application for bail filed by journalist Siddique Kappan, who has been in jail since October 2019. The judge rejected the objection of the advocate for the state of Uttar Pradesh on the […]
The Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court admitted an application filed by journalist Siddique Kappan, through his wife, Rayhanath Kappan, seeking to quash the “patently illegal prosecution sanctions” to proceed against Kappan under The Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act , 1967. While admitting the application on Friday, February […]
The arrest of Kashmirwalla’s founder and editor Fahad Shah on charges of sedition (IPC 124-A) and terror charges under the repressive and draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, is a chilling sign of the untrammelled powers of the administration to crack down even on the last vestiges of […]
At least 26 citizens and members of the Aravalli Bachao group were picked up by police in Gurgaon and detained for over three hours when they staged a silent peaceful protest against a waste burning plant that Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar was slated to inaugurate, despite […]
By Geeta Seshu The Bengaluru police action that resulted in the cancellation of comedian Munawar Faruqui’s show in the city is shameful. More than just a caving in to right-wing pressure, it is a clear abrogation of the duty of the police to uphold law and order. On […]
“By considering the legitimate freedom of speech and expression in both its off line and on line avatars as unlawful activity, the Tripura police are overstepping the bounds of their legal authority and without any legitimate cause violating constitutionally protected rights. By asking that Mukesh and Indori remove […]
More than 100 women activists and womens’ rights organisations have expressed grave misgivings of a Bombay High Court order that effectively results in a gag of court proceedings of sexual harassment cases. Read the detailed statement submitted to the Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court and Justice […]
The Siddique Kappan Solidarity Committee launched a campaign for the release of the jailed journalist, who was arrested by Uttar Pradesh police and charged under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, when he was on his way to Hathras village to cover the gang-rape and fatal assault on […]
The Siddique Kappan Solidarity Committee held a press conference in Calicut, Kerala, on Oct 1, 2021, to recognise that the jailed journalist is a Prisoner of Conscience and given legal support by the Kerala Government and to demand his release. Kappan was arrested, along with three others, on […]
In a surprising development, Justice Gautam Patel of the Bombay High Court has come out with a set of guidelines to deal with ‘protecting’ the identity of all parties in sexual harassment cases and also regulating the manner in which proceedings in such cases are reported. This amounts […]
The case against Andamans journalist Zubair Ahmad was quashed by Justice Shivakant Prasad of Calcutta High Court’s Circuit Bench in Port Blair , providing some sense and justice for the most absurd of the spate of cases lodged against journalists reporting on the pandemic! On April 27, 2020, […]
The Pegasus revelations have struck a body blow to privacy rights of citizens. In India, the government continues to be in denial over the purchase of spyware. The Supreme Court of India is hearings petitions filed by individuals who were targeted by surveillance and by organisations working on […]
“Democracy upholds the fundamental right to life and liberty alongside the right to freedom of speech and expression, assembly, association and movement in our country. The Supreme Court of India deemed the right to privacy as integral to the right to life and personal liberty guaranteed in Article […]
Journalists, politicians and human rights activists across the world had been spied upon by their governments using a spyware tool, ‘Pegasus’, struck at the very heart of the trust imposed by citizens on the State, especially in democracies, to safeguard their personal data and privacy.
Shyam Meera Singh said that ‘there is the freedom to murder and lynch but there is no freedom to criticise Modi or the current government; if there was freedom, why would he face termination? (Republished with permission from GauriLankeshNews). In an autocratic move, Aaj Tak, a Hindi-language news […]
The Trafficking in Persons (Prevention, Care and Rehabilitation) Bill 2021, by the Ministry of Women and Child Development, Government of India, slated to be introduced in the upcoming session of the Parliament, is fraught with over-broad definitions, a draconian investigation process and penal provisions that defeat the very […]
Courts have once again found no substance in flimsy accusations of sedition slapped by over-zealous police, reports Anjuman Ara Begum.
This provision will effectively give the Central Government supreme power over cinema exhibition in the country potentially endangering freedom of expression and democratic dissent.
Political cartoonists keep the system honest. They chip away at the hubris of those in power by laughing at them.
Aisha Sultana granted interim anticipatory bail by Kerala High Court
On Sept 5, 2022, five years after Gauri Lankesh was killed, the case came up before a trial court hearing the case against the 18 persons accused of her murder. The accused are lodged in Bengaluru, Yeravada and Mumbai prisons. The next date for the hearing is Sept 14, 2022.
Free Speech Collective 