The Alliance for Media Freedom condemned the ‘illegal detention’ of two journalists from Tamil Nadu who had helped two French journalists investigate illegal beach sand mining in the state. Alliance for Media Freedom, a collective of journalists, has condemned the treatment meted out by the Kanyakumari district police to two Indian journalists who helped two French journalists carry out an investigation into illegal beach sand mining in the state.

Speaking at a press conference on behalf of the Alliance, N Ram, Chairman of The Hindu Publishing Group said, “We condemn the high handed and illegal detention of two Tamil Nadu journalists by the Kanyakumari police based on a completely false narrative on an issue involving media freedom.”

Two French journalists, Jules Giraudat, Deputy Editor of the Freedom Voices Network Team and Arthur Bouvart, an investigative journalist part of the same organisation, were named in an FIR by the Kanyakumari police on November 29 for allegedly trespassing government property. Two Chennai-based journalists, D Anandhakumar and M Sriram, had accompanied the French journalists “without any monetary consideration and purely in the spirit of extending fraternal courtesy and facilitation to professional colleagues,” according to the Alliance.

The Alliance condemned the ‘illegal detention’ of the Indian journalists whose phones had reportedly been snatched away by the police after hours of questioning by “representative of the Intelligence Bureau, State Intelligence, Q Branch, CID and other agencies.”