A statement has been issued on behalf of gender rights activists, organisations and individuals condemning the UAPA charges against Kashmiri photojournalist Masrat Zahra. The statement strongly reiterates that the government must withdraw UAPA charges against Masrat. It also highlights the increasing difficulties that journalists in Kashmir are facing and call on the government to stop the witch-hunting of Muslim activists and scholars. The statement has 449 signatories and is attached at the end.

We, gender rights activists, organizations, and individuals, are appalled to hear about charges under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) being invoked against Masrat Zahra, a young photojournalist from Kashmir.

An FIR has been registered against Masrat under the UAPA for allegedly “uploading anti-national posts with criminal intention to induce the youth and to promote offenses against public tranquillity” and for “uploading posts that tantamount to glorify the anti-national activities and dent the image of law enforcing agencies besides causing disaffection against the country.”  Masrat’s social media accounts merely document everyday on-goings in Kashmir, a part of her duties and responsibilities as a journalist.  In light of this, it is particularly shocking that the FIR speaks of her as a Facebook “user”, completely washing over her credentials as a journalist, in whose line of duty the impugned photographs were taken. Masrat’s photos do not in any way suggest any anti-national content.

The use of an anti-terrorism law to quell the voices of reporters going about their jobs of reporting the realities on the ground rings a death knell for the last vestiges of a democratic future of this country. Already a draconian law, the UAPA was further amended in August last year, enabling the state to designate individuals as “terrorists” without requiring to provide further substantiation, and has been repeatedly misused to target dissenting voices.

Women in highly militarized zones, such as Kashmir, have unique battles, struggles, and stories owing to living lives under the high handedness of a heavily militarized regime. In addition to systematic incidences of gender-based and sexual violence against women by armed forces, which have been documented by different human rights groups, women from the valley are faced with other unique challenges. They bear the brunt of reduced access to public services and places, increasing policing of their movements and sexuality and gender-specific intimidation owing to the mass presence of armed forces and the impunity for any crimes committed. All these different hues of stories of women ought to be told.

Fearless in the face of extreme hardships and intimidation, Masrat and other women journalists and photojournalists from Kashmir have been at the forefront of bringing these stories to public records. She brought forth the stories of women and stories of everyday violence from women’s perspective. Her work has been published in both reputable national and international spaces and has garnered the praise of national and international audiences alike. The valley has a handful of working women journalists and using arbitrary power against one causes apprehensions and signals threat to others in the field.

We will not stand by as state machineries hound her for telling stories of pain and distress suffered by women in Kashmir under extreme militarization, which the state would rather have suppressed.

Since the abrogation of Article 370 on August 5, 2019, journalists in Kashmir have been operating under heavy scrutiny, surveillance, and a threat to physical integrity, while having to report from government-designated media facilitation center. Journalist bodies everywhere have condemned the plight through which journalists in Kashmir are being put through and have repeatedly petitioned the government to allow freedom of speech and expression, the cornerstone of a democracy, to be restored and safeguarded in Kashmir. However, this has not found much favour with the authorities. The charges against Masrat and other journalists such Asif Sultan,  Peerzada Ashiq, and GowharGeelani add yet another nail to the coffin of a free press in Kashmir. Apart from getting charged under various sections of IPC, several other journalists have time and again attempted to draw attention to the growing police assaults, with the most recent one being an assault on a local freelance journalist, GowharWani on April 15.

These charges come in the backdrop of the ongoing large scale witch-hunt by the state of Muslim scholar-activists who have been at the forefront of a movement to save democratic ideals of India. We strongly condemn the unleashing of the state’s harshest criminal law provisions against voices that refuse to tow the state line at the cost of great personal risk. It is particularly shocking that the government is choosing to hound activists during such a nationally trying time as the current crisis of Covid-19.

We once again call on the government to find non-authoritarian ways to understand and engage with the growing dissent against state actions in the country, rather than muzzling dissent and using penal powers and state machinery to criminalize individuals.

We, therefore, call upon the cybercrime cell of J&K to:

• Withdraw the preposterous and far-fetched charges under UAPA against Masrat Zahra.
• Withdraw similar charges under other criminal provisions against other Kashmiri journalists.

We call upon the Government of India to:

• Stop the witch-hunting of dissenting activists and scholars in India.
• Safeguard the constitutional right to freedom of speech and expression for all persons.