Censored at home and barred from travel, Kashmiri journalists persist

Aakash Hassan was scheduled to fly to Colombo, Sri Lanka, on July 27 to report on the country’s economic crisis, but he never made it. Although the Kashmiri journalist had completed all the travel formalities needed for a speedy departure, when he reached the immigration counter at the New Delhi International Airport, officials took him to a room and questioned him about his personal and professional life. 

After hours of waiting, his passport was stamped “canceled without prejudice,” meaning he would not be allowed to travel abroad that day. 

It was a perplexing experience, but not a unique one. A few weeks prior, another Kashmiri journalist, Sanna Irshad Mattoo, was stopped from traveling to Paris to attend a photography exhibition. Other journalists from the region have also been barred from traveling abroad since 2019, when the Indian government abrogated the autonomous status of Jammu and Kashmir and ramped up media restrictions.

Officials gave no reasons for the bans, making it difficult for the journalists to challenge the orders in court. Experts say these travel restrictions are yet another way that authorities are repressing journalism in Kashmir by treating it as a crime. Kashmiri journalists have been frequently summoned to police stations and questioned about their work, threatened with jail time, and pressured to self-censor. 

“After the abrogation of Kashmir’s special status … the authorities had decided that even routine journalism – if it appeared contrary to the narrative they wanted to propagate – had to be stopped,” says Kalpana Sharma, a veteran journalist and author who has extensively written about the Indian media. 

She says many local papers have caved to government pressure, and authorities are increasingly focusing on independent journalists who work with foreign outlets. Those who can find ways to endure the harassment say it’s only made them more determined to report the truth. 

Mr. Hassan doesn’t know for sure why he was barred from traveling to Colombo last month, but he suspects it’s related to his extensive reporting on human rights abuses and civil liberties in Kashmir.

In 2021, Mr. Hassan reported how several newspapers in Kashmir had deleted archived stories that criticized the government, and he also wrote about Kashmiri police harassing critics on social media. Both stories appeared on New York-based news sites.

“When something like this happens, it takes some time to get me back to the field,” he says about the canceled Colombo trip and other altercations with local police. But he eventually overcomes these feelings of frustration and starts writing again. 

“When we choose to be journalists, we are aware of the consequences. These incidents do not come as a surprise,” he says. “It might be difficult momentarily, but it won’t stop me.”

Criminalization of journalism

India’s rank fell from 142 to 150 out of 180 countries in the 2022 World Press Freedom Index, a downgrade largely attributed to punitive action against journalists in Kashmir, a predominantly Muslim region where authorities have long struggled to contain separatist insurgencies. 

“There is a complete opacity in terms of how the government in Jammu and Kashmir is dealing with journalists,” says Kunal Majumdar, India representative of the Committee to Protect Journalists, which has documented a sharp rise in the detention and arrests of journalists since 2019. 

He adds that this harassment is part of “a larger trend that we are seeing across the country, but it is much more intense in Kashmir.”

The ongoing persecution has created compounding challenges for local newsrooms, such as The Kashmir Walla. 

This year, the Walla’s office has been raided, and its staff questioned and booked in criminal cases that have drained resources and demanded unprecedented resolve from its leaders. Its founding editor, Fahad Shah, was arrested in February for allegedly posting “anti-national content” online, including a story about a deadly police raid which quoted the victims’ families. Mr. Shah – who also regularly contributed to the Monitor – remains in jail today. 

Interim editor Yashraj Sharma says that “everything fell apart” after Mr. Shah’s arrest. While the small staff has demonstrated perseverance in maintaining the Walla’s website, problems continue to pile up. 

“We are running out of funds. We have simultaneous court hearings. In a single day, there are a million things we have to juggle between,” Mr. Sharma says.

Still, to bow out now would be worse, as the local media landscape constricts and there are fewer newspapers able to document the day-to-day realities in Kashmir. 

“We have been standing on the edge of a cliff for a long time now, but giving up is a privilege we simply do not have,” Mr. Sharma says.

Nowhere to turn

Mounting pressures have prompted some Kashmiri journalists to turn to national or international outlets to get their stories out, as well as build more sustainable careers. But even this strategy could draw government scrutiny. 

The director-general of Jammu and Kashmir Police told The Indian Express this month that authorities have an obligation to keep a watchlist of journalists who may spread a “venomous kind of narrative” while abroad. 

The Indian Supreme Court has ruled in the past that authorities can only prevent a citizen from flying outside the country if they are undergoing a trial or wanted by the law. But Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch, says a number of activists and journalists have been arbitrarily stopped by Indian immigration authorities in recent years, including many Kashmiris. 

“The courts have usually refused to uphold these orders, and yet this disturbing practice persists, impacting freedom of movement and right to livelihood,” she says.

Srinagar-based journalist and activist Bilal Ahmad Bhat says he’s been stopped twice from traveling abroad, once at the New Delhi airport in October 2019 while heading to Malaysia for a conference, and again two years later, when he was prevented from boarding a plane to Lebanon.

“I wanted to take legal action against the travel ban, but I was told by a police officer that if I went by the legal way, the case would linger on forever,” Mr. Bhat says. 

Like other journalists, Mr. Bhat was never told why he was barred from traveling. 

After the first incident, Mr. Bhat says he started getting calls from various security agencies, asking him invasive questions about his personal and professional life. The ordeal filled him with anxiety, and he’s since struggled with frequent panic attacks and feelings of paranoia, which can make it difficult to focus on work. But he always finds a way.

“I will never give up. Even my family and friends are against the idea of me continuing journalism,” he says. “If I give up, who will speak for the people?”