From Our Bureau
NEW DELHI: Journalists held a demonstration on the gate of the Press Club of India here on Friday on the new accreditation rules imposed by the Centre early this month in what they dubbed as a mischievous methodology to impose an invisible press censorship on the media persons.
Various media organisations, led by the Editors Guild of India, Press Club of India and Press Association organised the protest and later submitted a resolution adopted in their meeting in the Press Club to revoke the accreditation guidelines to the office of the Information and Broadcasting Minister, who was away on campaign in Uttar Pradesh, and sought an urgent meeting of the stakeholders.
The resolution said the government had laid down stringent conditions to browbeat journalists, in order to compel them to toe the government lines. It said the rules arbitrarily imposed without any consultations are contrary to the rule that had been laid down in the past by the Press Council of India, a statutory body set up through an Act of Parliament.
It said the punishments prescribed in the guidelines are not only disproportionate but go against the remedial measures already there in the existing laws and statutes. It urged the government to desist from crushing dissent, investigative journalism and objective reporting through the new guidelines.
