The Hindu : Regrettable, says I&B Minister

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Nov 10, 2003

National

National

Regrettable, says I&B Minister

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI NOV.9. The Union Information and Broadcasting Minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad, today described the resolution of the Tamil Nadu Assembly sentencing the Editor of The Hindu and five others for breach of privilege of the House as ``unfortunate and regrettable'' and said he would request the Assembly Speaker to reconsider the decision.

He told reporters here that ``It is an unfortunate and regrettable incident, which has certainly disturbed me. Freedom of Press is an important Constitutional guarantee. Press has the right to report and the right to criticise''.

Mr. Prasad said he would ``respectfully appeal'' to the Speaker of the Tamil Nadu Assembly to reconsider the decision.

In another development, the National Union of Journalists and the Delhi Journalist Association demanded the dismissal of the Jayalalithaa Government in Tamil Nadu and announced a plan to hold a protest march from Teen Murthi Bhavan to the Tamil Nadu House in Chanakyapuri here on Monday, November 10, at 1 p.m.

In a statement, the president of the Delhi Journalists Association, Ras Bihari, said the decision of the Tamil Nadu Assembly was an infringement of the fundamental right of Freedom of Speech enshrined in the Indian Constitution.

``By doing so, the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa, has attacked at the basic roots of our democracy. We, the members of the journalistic fraternity, cannot be expected to be a mute spectator to this undemocratic and uncivilised decision. This has proved beyond doubt that Ms. Jayalalithaa is revengeful and cannot tolerate even slightest criticism, which are the basic traits of a dictator''.

In another statement, the president of the Indian chapter of South Asia Free Media Association, an organisation of mediapersons in South Asia, K.K. Katyal, deplored ``in strongest terms, the Tamil Nadu Speaker's order to arrest senior, respected journalists of The Hindu''.

``The perpetrators of this action have, no doubt, damned themselves. But, that does not mitigate the gravity of the situation. Nor is it to be allowed to distract from the serious problems created by the blatant attack on the freedom of the press and the Constitutional right of free expression, on the one hand, and the boorish conduct of the Chennai police, on the other''.

The Tamil Nadu episode would add a new dimension to the meeting of senior journalists that has already been planned to be held in Islamabad in the first week of January on ``freedom of media and press laws'' on the eve of the SAARC summit.

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