Lawfare, Summons/Notices – Journalists

Indian authorities should shelve a criminal complaint against the weekly Indian magazine Outlook, its leadership, and freelance journalist Neha Dixit, and ensure the safety of the journalist and Outlook’s staff, the Committee to Protect Journalists said on August 11.

On August 4, SC Koyal, an assistant solicitor general of the government of India at the Gauhati High Court, and Bijon Mahajan, a spokesman for the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), filed a criminal complaint against the English-language magazine Outlook, its publisher, Indranil Roy, its editor, Krishna Prasad, and Dixit.

The complaint alleged that a July 29 story Dixit wrote for Outlook violated Indian laws against inciting hatred between groups, according to the Assam Tribune. The story accused members of the Hindu nationalist group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) of trafficking 31 girls of tribal background in the northeastern state of Assam to other parts of India in an effort to inculcate them with a nationalist ideology.

Dixit’s story was widely circulated on social media. Since then, internet users have published photos of Dixit and her husband, sent her abusive tweets, and called for her arrest, according to social media posts reviewed by CPJ. In an open letter published on the news website Daily News and Analysis, Priti Gandhi, a national executive member of the BJP’s women’s wing, denied the allegations raised in the Outlook report. The RSS is the ideological fountainhead of the BJP, the party of government both in Assam and at the federal level.