Stop the Attempt to Intimidate Independent Media: Indian Cultural Forum

Condemning the FIR filed against The Wire's founding editor by the UP police, 90 members of the Indian Cultural Forum have called the move 'gross intolerance of criticism' and an attack on independant media.

Indian Cultural Forum

Photo: Indian Cultural Forum

We condemn, in the strongest possible terms, the FIRs filed against The Wire’s Founding Editor Siddharth Varadarajan by the police in Faizabad District, Uttar Pradesh. This is clearly an attempt to intimidate the media and muzzle its freedom.

The Wire has been accused of causing panic when it reported that the UP CM Adityanath, attended a public religious event on 25 March at Ayodhya, despite the countrywide lockdown. The Wire has responded that the Chief Minister’s attendance of this event is a matter of public record and knowledge. Hence, the IPC provisions on “disobedience of an order issued by a public servant” and issuing “statements creating or promoting enmity, hatred or ill-will between classes” mentioned in the FIRs do not apply.

A sentence in an article published by The Wire on 31 March mistakenly attributed the claim that Lord Ram would protect his devotees from the Corona virus to CM Adityanath, a remark actually made by Acharya Paramhans, head of the official trust which is to build the Ram temple in Ayodhya. This was retracted the following day by the website and the necessary correction made.

Also read: UP Police FIR Against The Wire an 'Attack on Freedom of the Press'

Mritunjay Kumar, Media Adviser to the chief minister, had earlier taunted Vardarajan in a tweet, saying, “Along with running the website, [you] will have to seek donations to fight the case.”

This is gross intolerance of criticism, essential for independent media to function in a democracy. This is why we strongly condemn the FIR filed against our colleague Siddharth Varadarajan as politically motivated, and call on all citizens of conscience to insist on our right to a free and independent media.

1. A. Mangai
2. Abhijit Sengupta
3. Abhishek Majumdar
4. Adil Jussawalla
5. Aditi Mehta
6. Akeel Bilgrami
7. Alok Perti
8. Amit Bhaduri
9. Amit Chaudhuri
10. Amitabha Pande
11. Ammu Joseph
12. Anand Patwardhan
13. Anand Teltumbde
14. Anna Dani
15. Anuradha Kapur
16. Atamjit Singh
17. Ayesha Kidwai
18. Badri Raina
19. Bhasha Singh
20. C.K. Meena
21. Chaman Lal
22. Chandrakant Patil
23. G.N. Devy
24. Geeta Kapur
25. Githa Hariharan
26. Indira Chandrasekhar
27. Javed Malick
28. Jeet Thayil
29. Jyoti Punwani
30. K. Satchidanandan
31. Kamayani Bali Mahabal
32. Keki Daruwalla
33. Kingshuk Nag
34. Kumkum Roy
35. Leela Jacinto
36. Makarand Sathe
37. Mala Dayal
38. Mallika Sarabhai
39. Manabi Majumdar
40. Mangad Rathnakaran
41. Manishi Jani
42. Meena Menon
43. Mridula Garg
44. Mrinal Pande
45. Naina Dayal
46. Naresh Fernandes
47. Naseeruddin Shah
48. Natasha Badhwar
49. Neelan Premji
50. Neeraj Malik
51. Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay
52. Nivedita Menon
53. Nupur Basu
54. P.R. Dasgupta
55. P. Sainath
56. Padmaja Shaw
57. Paranjoy Guha Thakurta
58. Partha Chatterjee
59. Parthasarathi Majumdar
60. Poile Sengupta
61. Prabir Purkayastha
62. Pushpamala N
63. Rahman Abbas
64. Ratna Pathak Shah
65. Revathi Siva Kumar
66. Ritu Menon
67. Rukmini Bhaya Nair
68. S Raghunandana
69. Sakuntala Narasimhan
70. Salim Yusufji
71. Sandhya Srinivasan
72. Sanjeev Kumar
73. Saumya Chakrabarti
74. Seema Mustafa
75. Shafey Kidwai
76. Shamsul Islam
77. Shankar Raghuraman
78. Shashi Deshpande
79. Shoma A Chatterji
80. Subhasis Nibirh
81. Sudhanva Deshpande
82. Sujata Madhok
83. Sumi Krishna
84. Sundar Burra
85. T.M/ Krishna
86. Vijay Prashad
87. Vijaya Venkataraman
88. Vinod K. Jose
89. Vivek Narayanan
90. Zoya Hasan

This was published on Indian Cultural Forum. Read the original here.

This article went live on April fourth, two thousand twenty, at fifteen minutes past eight in the evening.

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