IJU condemns extra judicial surveillance on journos
Hyderabad, July 21, 2021: The Indian Journalists Union (IJU) has condemned the extrajudicial surveillance on journalists, human rights activists and other regime critics and demanded a high level inquiry into the Pegasus report either by a Joint Parliamentary Committee or any other agency monitored by the Supreme Court. The revelations by Amnesty International and Forbidden Stories, a Paris based non profit organization, are highly disturbing as they indicate a no holds barred snooping into the lives of citizens undermining the very basis for democracy, IJU President K Sreenivas Reddy and Secretary General Balwinder Singh Jammu said on Wednesday in a statement. Illegal snooping on its own citizens by the State is invasion of privacy and much more as it demonstrates the classical characteristic of an Orvellian State which will have a serious chilling effect and numbs the society.
The Government’s denial that illegal surveillance was not possible in India holds no water, the IJU leaders said and referred to the immediate initiation of an inquiry by the French Government into similar revelations in their country. Flagging the issue of lack of accountability and proper legal framework for intelligence agencies in the country, the IJU leaders said it is high time the Government had a comprehensive overhaul of the entire surveillance mechanism and provide a fresh frame work for it within the contours of the 2017 K. S. Puttaswamy verdict of the Supreme Court.