Bengaluru: Karnataka is second only to Jammu and Kashmir in terms of attacks on journalists, claims The Hoot, a website in its “India Freedom Report, Media Freedom and Freedom of Expression in 2017.”
Referring in particular to the murder of journalist/activist, Gauri Lankesh, The Hoot says she was one of 11 journalists murdered in the country in 2017. "In only three of these cases is there a clear linkage with their journalistic work. One murder, that of Karnataka journalist Gauri Lankesh, took place in Karnataka and two others in Tripura. Gauri Lankesh was the Editor of the Kannada publication Gauri Lankesh Patrike and she was gunned down by masked motorcycle-riding assassins on September 5, 2016 outside her home when she was returning from work. Till date, no arrest has been made, but the Karnataka police told The Hoot that the investigation into the high profile murder was nearly complete and the investigating agencies were just waiting for forensic confirmation from a foreign country where the evidence was also being examined," the survey said.
The site also refers to the action taken against the editors of two local weeklies in Karnataka to back its claim. "In June in Karnataka the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly and head of the House of Privileges’ Committee, K.B. Koliwad, sentenced editors of two local weeklies to one year in jail and imposed a fine of Rs. 10,000 each for having published allegedly defamatory articles about legislators thus breaching their privilege," it said.
Claiming that Maharashtra has the highest incidence of defamation cases and Andhra Pradesh, the largest number of attacks on and threats against journalists, the site also maintains that Karnataka has the highest number of state actions for Internet and social media related incidents.
It says the number of defamation cases have fallen sharply in Tamil Nadu following its late Chief Minister, J. Jayalalitha’s demise in December 2016. "Between 2011 and 2016, according to one estimate the AIADMK regime under its supremo, Jayalalitha filed over 200 defamation cases against the media, opposition leaders and social activists," the survey observed, adding that since then Tamil Nadu had recorded a low of seven cases, with the AIADMK filing just one and none against a journalist !
The Hoot claims that Kerala, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh had charged 23, 18 and 15 persons with sedition and cases were lodged against 59 persons in eight separate incidents in Karnataka, Kerala, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, 24 of them for allegedly raising the Pakistan flag and supporting Pakistan’s win in a cricket match.
The site says politicians are the largest category of complainants, followed by corporate houses and the BJP leads with complaints against journalists in various legislature forums in the country. It claims its data has been sourced from the Hoot’s Free Speech Hub , the Software Freedom Law Centre and Internet Shutdown Tracker.
