'Reporting is public service, not crime': 58 organisations write to J&K LG on Fahad Shah's arrest

Fifty-eight press freedom organisations, human rights organisations and publications wrote to Jammu and Kashmir lieutenant governor Manoj Sinha on Monday, asking him to secure the "immediate release" of journalist Fahad Shah.

Shah, the editor of Kashmir Walla, was arrested on February 4 for sharing "anti-national content" on social media. The letter urged Sinha to also withdraw "all police investigations launched into his journalistic work".

The letter was signed by groups including the Ambedkar King Study Circle, Committee to Protect Journalists, Digipub News India Foundation, Free Speech Collective, Himal Southasian, International Press Institute, Jacobin, PEN America, Press Club of India, and Reporters Without Borders.

The letter said: "We also urge you to arrange the immediate release of other detained Kashmiri journalists– Sajad Gul, Aasif Sultan, and Manan Gulzar Dar – all of whom, like Shah, have been jailed under anti-terror or preventative detention laws in apparent retaliation for their work."

The letter noted that since the abrogation of Article 370 in the erstwhile state, "press freedom and rights groups have documented numerous incidents of detentions and threats to journalists in the region".

The release of journalists would, it said, "prevent further criminalisation of the profession in Jammu and Kashmir". It noted that Shah's "reporting on events in Jammu and Kashmir is a public service, not a crime, and should be protected under Indian law".

Shah had been summoned by the police, and then arrested. The "content" in question that he had posted on social media was allegedly a Pulwama-based family’s claims that their son, who was killed in an encounter last week, was innocent. Shah had been summoned by the police earlier this week after his portal filed a report on the family's version.

According to the Tribune, the police said the posts were "tantamount to glorifying the terrorist activities and causing dent to the image of law enforcing agencies besides causing ill-will and disaffection against the country".