Assam journalists protest brutal assaults on media

Guwahati: The media fraternity of Assam in northeast India on 29 June 2015 demonstrated their angers against the brutal assaults on media persons and killing of scribes across the country. The protest demonstration that started at 12 noon in front of Guwahati Press Club continued till 1 pm.

Representatives of various journalist organizations, while meeting at the local press club yesterday, observed that the media persons based in different parts of India should get united demanding justice for all the slain journalists and also raise voices for a national action plan for the safety & security of newsmen across the country. It may be mentioned that June 2015 has witnessed a number of cases relating to the physical attacks on the scribes in various parts of the country, where Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh had lost two journalists (namely Jagendra Singh and Sandeep Kothari respectively) to the assailants. On the other hand, a rural reporter of Assam (Prashanta Kumar) survived an assassination bid by the suspected armed militants.

The UP also witnessed two major incidents of physical assaults on media persons (namely Deepak Mishra and Haidar Khan), where as Tamil Nadu reported the assault case on Saravanan and Jammu & Kashmir witnessed the mishandling of Javaid Malik by the political clout. Earlier Assam too reported few bizarre incidents where local journalists were mishandled by policemen (to a lady television reporter), businessmen (to Mukut Roy), unruly youths ( to Partha Sakia) and a media baron (to Hildol Gogoi) in separate incidents. India in 2014 lost two active journalists namely Tarun Kumar Acharya from Ganjam district of Odisha (formerly Orissa) and MVN Shankar from Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh to the assailants. According to New York based Committee to Protect Journalists, 61 journalists were killed last year across the globe, where the motive explained that they were targeted because of their activities as media persons. The deadliest countries in 2014 include Syria (17), Ukraine (5), Iraq (5), Somalia (4), Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory (4), Brazil (3), Afghanistan (3), Pakistan (3), Paraguay (3), Mexico (2), India (2), Yemen (1), Myanmar ( 1), Libya (1), Democratic Republic of the Congo (1), South Africa (1), Philippines (1), Bangladesh (1), Guinea (1), Central African Republic(1) etc.

This year till the third week June, 32 journalists were killed around the world, where India’s neighbour Bangladesh recorded three gory incidents (slaughtering of secular bloggers namely Ananta Bijoy Das, Washiqur Rahman Babu and Avijit Roy). Other deadliest countries till date (this year) include France (8), South Sudan (5), Syria (4), Yemen (4), India (2), Brazil (1), Iraq (1), Guatemala (1), Ukraine ( 1), Democratic Republic of the Congo (1), Mexico (1) etc.

The demonstrators of Assam also demanded a special protection law for the on duty media persons in the line of police & physicians on duty hours across the country to ensure justice for the victim journalists.

By NJ Thakuria