New Delhi, Apr 23: The Indian Journalists Union strongly condemned the Uttar Pradesh government’s brazen attempt to gag criticism and independent media by filing criminal charges against The Wire and one of its founding Editors and senior journalist Siddharth Varadrajan.
 Two FIRs filed against Siddharth and The Wire on April 1, not only promptly followed a sinister threat from Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s media advisor Mrityunjay Kumar but worse the UP police has served a hand-delivered notice all the way from UP to the Editor to appear before the Ayodhya authorities tomorrow (April 14) at a time when Prime Minister Modi’s nation-wide lockdown is underway, it said in a release.
The criminal charges filed, said the IJU, smack of vindictiveness and amount to a direct attack on press freedom, threat to freedom of speech and expression as well as a clear violation of the citizens’ right to access to information. 
In a statement IJU President and former member of Press Council of India Geetartha Pathak and IJU Secretary General and IFJ Vice President Sabina Inderjit said the UP government’s actions were unwarranted as what was reported in The Wire was factual and far from being ‘fake news’ as alleged. Plus, Siddharth did issue a clarification to a quote wrongly attributed to Yogi as per journalistic norms in consonance with guidelines issued by Press council of India and should have sufficed.  
Expressing solidarity with The Wire and its team, the IJU also urged Prime Minister Modi and Information & Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar to step in and ensure that the UP government does not make a mockery of their gratitude towards the media for acting as a link between the government and the people during these difficult times. 

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Kenter Joya Riba

(Managing Editor)
      She is a graduate in Science with post graduation in Sociology from University of Pune. She has been in the media industry for nearly a decade. Before turning to print business, she has been associated with radio and television.
Email: kenterjoyaz@easternsentinel.in / editoreasternsentinel@gmail.com
Phone: 0360-2212313

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