Kashmiri journalist Fahad Shah, who endured almost 21 months in jail on expenses of “anti-national content material” and “glorifying terrorism” in Kashmir, secured bail on Friday from Indian authorities.
Shah’s launch got here three months after the authorities blocked the Kashmir Walla, a publication he based and leads. Regardless of the problem of acquiring bail below India’s anti-terrorism legal guidelines, the courtroom justified its choice by asserting that Shah didn’t pose an instantaneous risk to society upon launch. Shah confronted a number of expenses arising from his information journal’s reporting, together with one along with a scholar below the Illegal Actions Prevention Act (UAPA) on expenses of “narrative terrorism.”
The Committee to Shield Journalists (CPJ) celebrated Shah’s launch by way of an announcement on X (previously Twitter), urging authorities to drop all expenses in opposition to him and raise the ban imposed on his information website.
Within the aftermath of the 2019 revocation of Kashmir’s particular standing, there was an alleged clampdown on press freedom, manifesting in quite a few web shutdowns and escalating militarization. The long-standing territorial dispute between India and Pakistan has additional exacerbated regional tensions. India has fallen on the Reporter with out Borders (RSF) Press Freedom Index, now sitting at 161 out of 180, marking a regression from its earlier rank of 150 in 2022.
