The prolonged and unprecedented internet shutdown in Kashmir has already completed 100 days, entering 107th day on Tuesday, which is a matter of deep concern and condemnation.
The management committee of the Kashmir Press Club, while discussing the impact of the internet blackout observed that for the Journalists in Kashmir, the communications blackout has meant minuscule access to the world outside and over 100 days of deprivation and humiliation.
Since August 5, the journalists and media workers in Kashmir have been deprived of basic communications facilities like internet and broadband services in the offices, which has severely hampered their work. Now the authorities have made undertakings must for restoration of internet access in the valley, with one of the conditions in the undertaking requiring the internet users to provide unfettered access to content and infrastructure as and when required.
While condemning the internet shutdown across all platforms, the KPC meeting termed the restrictions on journalists, media in Kashmir as “totally unwarranted and unreasonable aimed at gagging the Kashmir press.
Demanding that the government lift the ban on internet, the KPC meeting further observed that due to the communications blockade, the newspapers in Kashmir have not been able to upload their internet editions and update their news websites, which in turn has lead to drastic job cuts by scores of media organizations in Kashmir besides los of online advertisement revenue.
As the journalists in Kashmir continue to be deprived access to the internet, the Government has herded hundreds of journalist and media workers in Valley to the so called Media Facilitation Centre, now shifted from a private hotel to the Directorate of Information & Publicity (DIPR). The KPC meeting also noted with concern the daily and often humiliation grind of just 10 computer terminals for hundreds of Kashmir based journalists and media workers, waiting for their turns in this biting and freezing cold to file their stories.
In this background, the Kashmir Press Club Urges the government to take note of the severe hardships faced by the media fraternity in Kashmir and ensure restoration of the internet services to the journalists, media workers and newspapers offices without further delay.