Newsrooms Count Their Detained As UN Questions Delhi Over Protest Clampdown

The UN human rights office listed journalists among those detained during Saturday's protests in Delhi, a complaint India's own press body has made about the same protest site

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The Press Club of India has said in a statement  that it was shocked and dismayed at the Delhi Police's actions against and treatment of journalists during the demonstrations at Jantar Mantar.

The statement was signed by the club's president, Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty, and its secretary general, Afzal Imam.

Journalists from independent organisations and news portals had carried press cards and repeatedly identified themselves as media, it said, and police had still behaved violently and aggressively, detaining some alongside protesters.

Behaviour of that kind could not be normalised in a democracy, the club said. That journalists were unable to work freely at the heart of the national capital did not bode well for the trajectory of media freedom in India.

The UN comment was issued in Geneva that evening by Thameen Al-Kheetan, spokesperson for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The office was concerned by reports of mass detentions of demonstrators, protest leaders, members of civil society organisations, lawyers and journalists, before and during the day's protests, it said. 

India's Permanent Mission in Geneva replied the same day in a post on social media. No official was named. The right to peaceful assembly was guaranteed by the constitution and safeguarded by robust institutions, an independent judiciary and a free media, it said. Citizens exercised it subject to reasonable restrictions in the interest of public order, the authorities acted in accordance with the law, and the courts remained open for redress.

The office's concerns were misplaced and constituted an unwarranted interference in India's internal affairs, it said, adding that the office should give comparable attention to large protests elsewhere.