Kashmir Press Club shut down in IoK

SRINAGAR: The Indian-run administration shut down the Kashmir Press Club in Srinagar in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK).

The restive region remains off-limits to foreign reporters and rife with communications blackouts and curfews while local journalists remained one of the few reliable sources of information, even as they operated under difficult conditions.

Kashmir Press Club emerged in recent years both as a space for journalists to work and express solidarity with colleagues facing pressure from the government. Indian authorities took control of the club by backing an illegal takeover by a group of journalists who barged into the club offices on January 15.

The government had issued a re-registration certificate to the club on December 29, 2021. A day before the takeover, the government issued an arbitrary order saying the re-registration certificate of the Kashmir Press Club had been kept in abeyance.

The club was originally registered in 2018 under the Jammu and Kashmir Registration of Societies Act. In May 2021, the government issued a notification asking all registered societies to re-register under the new laws that came into place after Jammu and Kashmir’s autonomy was revoked.

The closure signals the dismal state of press freedom in Kashmir, journalists said. The Editors Guild of India called the shutdown the “worst kind of state heavy-handedness” against independent media.

The crackdown on local media is the latest restriction in the conflict-torn region, which has been roiled by increasing tensions since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government revoked its autonomy and statehood in August 2019.

Elections to the legislative assembly have not been held since, and top political leaders are frequently detained. Groups working on human rights issues have been raided and activists jailed under stringent anti-terrorism laws.

Many news outlets in India considered critical of the government face pressure from authorities, media watchdog bodies say, but journalists in Kashmir work in a far-more restrictive environment and face intimidation and harassment by police and security forces.

Foreign correspondents are not allowed to visit Kashmir without permission from the Ministry of Home Affairs in Delhi, and permission is rarely granted. In 2020, the government issued new guidelines for the media, giving itself broad powers to determine whether news is false or prejudiced against India’s national interest.

India’s Internet shutdown in Kashmir is the longest ever in a democracy. Locals have accused security forces of staging fake gunfights, using civilians as human shields, to cover up extrajudicial killings.