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Parties condemn attack on press freedom

By Our New Delhi Bureau

NEW DELHI NOV. 8. Political parties across the spectrum today expressed serious concern over the decision of the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly to sentence the editors and senior journalists of The Hindu and the editor of Murasoli, and "condemned" the attack on the freedom of the press. There were also demands that the Jayalalithaa Government reconsider and withdraw the action.

The Congress described the happenings not only as a frontal assault on the freedom of the press but on democracy itself. "The privileges of legislature have been grossly abused to settle scores with independent media and political opponents."

Describing a legislature as a temple of democracy, the party's chief spokesperson, S. Jaipal Reddy, said: "But in Tamil Nadu it has been converted into a truncheon of autocracy by the Jayalalithaa Government." The privileges of legislatures were meant to be used as a shield and not as a sword, he added.

The Jayalalithaa Government, Mr. Reddy said, was on the "rampage", suppressing civil liberties of politicians, pressmen, government employees and trade unions in a "fascist fashion".

It had "viciously targeted" The Hindu, an internationally acclaimed newspaper, he said, adding that the paper now faced 16 criminal defamation cases and one civil defamation case.

"Now, the government in Tamil Nadu is hell-bent on arresting and imprisoning the top management figures of The Hindu during the weekend when it would be difficult to reach the courts for relief."

There was an imperative necessity for the entire media and democratic forces in the country to express solidarity with the struggles of the people of Tamil Nadu for freedom of the press in particular and personal freedoms in general, the party said.

The Bharatiya Janata Party president, M. Venkaiah Naidu, said the action was not at all warranted and was an assault on the freedom of the press. "Such actions can weaken democracy and therefore need to be withdrawn."

Urging the Tamil Nadu Government and the State Legislature to review and repeal the decision, he said that as responsible people in public life they were expected to be liberal about criticism.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) termed it "an outrageous attack on the freedom of the press and the rights of citizens" and said sentencing to prison was a "gross misuse of legislative privilege".

This extraordinary step against The Hindu and Murasoli was another sign of the Jayalalithaa Government's "extreme intolerance to any opposition or dissent", the party said adding that the State Government must reconsider and withdraw the action.

The Communist Party of India said "this extraordinary" step was an attack on the freedom of the press for printing and discharging its legitimate tasks. "It is a deliberate attempt to subvert the fundamental right of a free press. The Hindu is a respected national daily."

The CPI-ML described it as an "act of desperation" and demanded that the sentences against the senior journalists be revoked immediately.

The Janata Party president, Subramanian Swamy, saw the arrest warrants "as revealing a totalitarian psychology". Anything objectionable written in the media could always in a democracy be rebutted by a statement by the aggrieved party. "But for the last 50 years Tamil Nadu has been a basket case as far as fundamental rights are concerned because of the influence of the pro-British imperialist Dravidian movement.

Thus the track record of the Congress, DMK and AIADMK in government is only marginally different because all the three draw their inspiration from the DK and its forerunner, the Justice Party.

Hence, at this ignoble hour for the State, democratic minded persons must take a pledge to stand together and resolve to purge the body politic of the slave culture of the Dravidian movement," he said.

Voicing its "deepest sense of shock and severest remorse," the Janata Dal (United) expressed the hope that the entire press and people would rise as one to effectively deal with this kind of threat to the freedom of the press.

The Lok Janshakti party chief, Ram Vilas Paswan appealed for rallying behind The Hindu and the people of Tamil Nadu who, he said, were suffering under a semi-autocratic regime. The action against senior daily's journalists through a Resolution of the Assembly was "simply another incidence of intolerance towards public criticism and any attempt to muffle the press is unwarranted".

Bhim Singh of the Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party said those sitting as masters of legislatures in their respective States must not forget that they were not above the Constitution or the rule of law.

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