Hyderabad: The Indian Journalists Union (IJU) welcomed the order of the Supreme Court granting immediate bail to Prashant Kanojia, a freelance journalist based in Delhi, who was arrested by the Uttar Pradesh police on June 8 for posting on twitter a video of a woman claiming that she proposed marriage to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.
The Supreme Court vacation bench consisting of Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice Ajay Rastogi said the freedom of expression and other rights guaranteed in Constitution ‘are sacrosanct and non-negotiable”. In last three days, the UP police arrested three more journalists — Anuj Shukla and Ishita Singh of Nation Live, a Noida-based news channel and Peer Mohammad, a freelance journalist from Gorakhpur district for airing the footage of the woman speaking to newsmen and for posting it on social media.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, IJU president Amar Devulapalliand member of Press Council of India (PCI) has demanded that the other three journalists should also be released immediately. He said “the order of the apex court granting bail to Prashant Kanojia is a slap on the face of Yogi Adityanath government, which arbitrarily arrested four journalists for reporting on the social media and in their news outlets. The IJU also demanded that the UP government immediately release all the four arrested journalists. (NSS)
