Concern over attack on journalists in T.N.

NEW DELHI, AUG. 16. Mr. Vijay Kumar Chopra, president of the Indian Newspaper Society, has said that the entire media community is gravely concerned about the recent incidents of attack by police on media personnel, belonging both to the print and visual media, in Tamil Nadu.

``It appears that there is a deliberate pattern to these attacks and this is the second time in the last two months that journalists have been brutally beaten up with a view to preventing their full and free functioning. Such incidents of excess by the police are undoubtedly an assault on the freedom of speech and expression'', he said in a statement.

Mr. Chopra said that such incidents involving police brutality on media personnel and highhandedness by the upholders of the law deserved severe condemnation. The State Government must ensure that such incidents did not recur and those responsible for the assault on journalists should be proceeded against and the strictest possible action taken against them, he said.

The Editors Guild of India, in a statement, also expressed concern over the repeated incidents of attack on mediapersons in Tamil Nadu, including intimidation and obstruction. Journalists covering political events were discharging their duties and they should not be targeted for violence and threat either by the authorities or political parties, it said. ``The Guild condemns these attacks. It exhorts the Tamil Nadu Government and political parties to ensure such attacks do not recur.''

The Guild, at its executive meeting on July 27, had noted with concern the incidents of media intimidation in Tamil Nadu and was shocked that whenever there was political tension, the media was being targeted, the statement said. ``It had reiterated that criminal intimidation of journalists and preventing them from performing their duties were violations of the freedoms enshrined in and guaranteed by the Constitution.''

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