Time Digital Report: Seven journalists' groups in India today wrote a joint letter to President Droupadi Murmu drawing her attention to "the use of draconian laws against journalists".
"As journalists, we take a lot of collective pride in the strides that our country has made in the last 75 years. There was a dark period as well when the Fourth Estate was fettered, a phase which our democracy would not like to see repeated. Today, our community faces a similar but more insidious challenge," it said.
The letter said, "Even as the majority in our profession face precarious working conditions, the use of draconian laws against journalists has gone up exponentially. Many of these laws do not even acknowledge the special role that our independent press plays -- that of being the voice of so many diverse citizens of this country."
"Under some of these draconian laws, the authorities have used their unfettered right to seize equipment such as phones, laptops and hard disks --equipment and software that are the source of livelihood for our community. These laws do not provide for bail where incarceration is the norm and not the exception," it reads.
They sought the president's "intervention as the highest Constitutional authority to ensure that the freedoms in our Constitution are protected which includes the freedom of speech, the freedom to profess occupation and livelihood."
The letter was jointly shot off by the Press Club of India, Press Association, Delhi Union of Journalists, Kerala Union of Working Journalists, Digipub, Foreign Correspondents Club, Veteran Journalists Group and All India Lawyers Union, reports our New Delhi correspondent.
