Press Club and Tribal Body Condemn FIR Against Editors Guild’s Fact-Finding Team as “Strongarm Tactic” and “Govt Intolerance”

The FIR against Editors Guild of India (EGI) for their report on violence in Manipur has drawn strong criticism from the Press Club of India, journalists, and representatives of civil society, who have demanded that it be dropped.

The three members of the fact-finding team that visited the state from August 7 to 10 and produced a report on the situation there were named in a FIR, according to Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh on Monday. Bharat Bhushan, Sanjay Kapoor, and Seema Guha make up the three individuals in the fact-finding team.

While the Indigenous Tribal Leaders’ Forum (ITLF), the Press Club of India, and journalists criticized the FIR, press organizations connected to the Meitei community in Manipur have threatened legal action over the report’s contents. The EGI warned that “the media in Manipur was playing a partisan role in the ongoing ethnic conflict between the majority Meitei community and the Kuki-Chin minority” and said that Manipur media had transformed into “Meitei media” in its report.

Since May 3, when riots broke out between the Meitei and tribal populations of the state after a tribal demonstration against the proposed scheduled tribe designation to the Meitis, Manipur has been plagued by ethnic violence. Since then, thousands of people have been displaced and more than 150 people have died. Houses, places of worship, and administrative and political structures have all experienced repeated attacks.

Speaking to the media, CM Singh criticized the EGI study as being “totally one-sided” and failing to take into account Manipur’s complexity, context, and history.

Separately, in response to the criticism of the EGI report, the All Manipur Working Journalists’ Union (AMWJU) and Editors Guild Manipur threatened the EGI with a “legal damage suit” if it did not clarify “grave misrepresentations,” according to Newslaundry. This publication added that these organizations “strongly denied” the “motivated allegation based on hearsay” in the EGI report.

The Indigenous Tribal Leaders’ Forum (ITLF) and the Press Club of India (PCI) both spoke out in favor of the EGI and denounced the FIR. They demanded the FIR be withdrawn as well.

The PCI expressed its “strong condemnation” of the FIR in a statement that was posted on Twitter, calling the government’s move a “strongarm tactic” that “intimidated the apex media body of the country.”

The PCI further noted the filing of the FIR according to Section 66A of the Information Technology Act of 2000, which the Supreme Court had invalidated in 2015.

“Despite the Supreme Court’s ruling that Section 66A of the Information and Technology Act should not be used, the police have done so. The PCI noted that the Apex Court repeatedly ordered that no one be punished for violating the clause and that the EGI performed a “commendable job” by sending a fact-finding team to Manipur.

The Indigenous Tribal Leaders Forum (ITLF) denounced the legal threats made against the journalists in a separate statement. The FIR “demonstrates the government’s intolerance towards anyone who disagrees with its narrative,” the statement said.

The three-person EGI team, who together have more than 60 years of journalistic experience, decided to go to a conflict area despite being repeatedly warned about the political nature of the media.The ITLF released a statement claiming that the valley-based media had engaged in not only biased reporting but also frequently published completely made-up news. “On more than one occasion, Imphal newspapers have carried ‘news’ items about fierce gun battles between Kuki-Zo tribal groups in the heart of Lanka,” it said.