Journalists in India risked losing their jobs if they criticised the Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party government, the RSF said.
Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF), the global media watchdog, has named Prime Minister Narendra Modi in its list of 37 heads of states who have astronomically suppressed Press Freedom in their respective countries. The RSF labelled these leaders as “press freedom predators”.
In this year’s list, apart from PM Modi, North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan were also featured. Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammed bin Salman and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán were among the new entrants to the list.
PM Modi, ever since he took office in 2014, has been on Reporters Sans Frontières’ “press freedom predators” gallery.
“After becoming Gujarat’s chief minister in 2001, he used this western state as a laboratory for the news and information control methods he deployed after being elected as India’s prime minister in 2014,” the RSF said on PM Modi’s inclusion in the list.
The global media watchdog added: “His leading weapon is to flood the mainstream media with speeches and information tending to legitimise his national-populist ideology. To this end, he has developed close ties with billionaire businessmen who own vast media empires.”
Journalists in India risked losing their jobs if they criticised the Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party government, the RSF added, highlighting how certain media outlets gave prominent coverage to Modi’s “extremely divisive and derogatory speeches, which often constitute disinformation” to get record viewership.
The RSF also pointed out that journalists in India risked imprisonment under the sedition law and how they were subjected to online attacks. “Modi can count on an army of online trolls known as “yodha” (the Hindi word for “warriors”), who wage appalling hate campaigns on social media against the journalists they don’t like, campaigns that almost routinely include calls for the journalists to be killed,” the RSF said.
The media watchdog also referred to the killing of journalist Gauri Lankesh and the virulent targeting of Rana Ayyub and Barkha Dutt, who it said “were subjected to calls for them to be gang-raped and their personal data was posted online to facilitate attacks”.
India was one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists, the RSF had said in April.
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