SNS KASHMIR
SRINAGAR , JANUARY,18:
Nazir Masoodi/ NDTV
The Kashmir Press Club in Srinagar was permanently shut down on Monday with its premises formally taken over by the government of the union territory of Kashmir. The government announced that the biggest journalist body of the Valley has ceased to exist – it has lost its registration as a society, its land has been reclaimed by the government.
The intentions of the administration were clear on Friday, a day after the Press Club said elections were to be held for key posts on February 15. The next day, a group of journalists, seen as supporters of the government and accompanied by armed policemen, barged into the club and locked the premises, preventing independent journalists from entering the area, and declaring that they would now run the organization.
In its dismantling of the civil society group, the government has followed the template it used in November 2018 to dissolve the Jammu and Kashmir assembly. Soon after regional parties formed an alliance and staked claim to form government, so did a rival group with the support of the BJP. The then Governor Satya Pal Malik said he didn’t receive any letter from the regional parties about their right to form the government because the fax machine in his office was not working. He then dissolved the assembly, needed, he said, to prevent parties from buying each other’s MLAs in their effort to prove they had the required numbers to form the government.
The Kashmir Press Club, founded in 2018, was the largest body of independent reporters in a region where the freedom of the press has been steadily eroding. A year after Jammu and Kashmir was declared no longer a state, and its special status and autonomy were removed, the club was asked to register anew as a society. That process was completed in December but suddenly, two weeks ago, the new registration was put on hold with the government claiming that the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of police had given adverse reports about the character and antecedents of those on the governing body of the club.
The club has been prevented from holding democratic elections for its governing body. The administration says its intervention was imperative after reports in “social media and sources” about “a potential law and order situation” and breach of peace; it said it was also looking out for the safety of journalists.
The Press Club had 300 members. With it being made defunct, the government’s approach is quite evident – it will not allow any institution which doesn’t toe the official line or is in sync with the political ideology of ruling party. The only platform which raised the voice against frequent harassment of journalists has been shut, de-registered and dispossessed. “Stifling of the voice” of journalism, the club said in a statement.(Courtesy NDTV)