MEDIA PROTESTS
After a lot of delay and discussions, finally journalists of Kashmir came on the streets to protest against the media policy drafted by the UT administration recently and said that it was not acceptable to them. Journalists under the banner of J&K Media Guild” staged a protest against Media policy and demanded its immediate rollback.
Carrying banners that read “don’t gag media, we are an equally important pillar of democracy”, “down with media policy 2020” etc, the protesters assembled at Press Enclave here and wanted the attention of the government to their protests so that the new media policy is redrafted or is rolled back as it was not up to the freedom of expression guaranteed by constitution.
The protesting journalists said that it seems that the new policy has been drafted to harass and intimidate journalists in Kashmir and was a deliberate attempt to weaken this pillar of democracy here.
“The media policy is against all newspapers, news channels and all other news platforms. The policy provides for informing the government and police beforehand before carrying any story,” said the agitating journalists at a press enclave in Srinagar.
The protesters demanded an immediate rollback of the policy and said that the government should understand that without providing the due space to the media to operate it would be impossible for the journalists to function with the current media policy.
