WAN-IFRA report flags abuse of economic charges to silence media, cites NewsClick case : Valley Vision

The wide range of legal threats, as well as administrative and other tools, employed by governments and other actors to target independent journalists and media outlets continues to be an increasing and alarming trend, according to a new report from the World Association of News Publishers (WAN-IFRA).

The report, titled ‘Misuse of economic charges to silence, threaten and attack the press: Review of case studies’ documents eight different cases of media under attack for their independent journalism across globe, including that of NewsClick from India.

The WAN-IFRA report was produced in collaboration with Inter American Press Association (IAPA), a non-profit dedicated to promoting press freedom in the Americas, and with the support of UNESCO.

The case studies documented in the report include those of Abzas Media from Azerbaijan, El Faro from El Salvador, Erick Kabendera from Tanzania, Jimmy Lai from Hong Kong, Jose Ruben Zamora from Guatemala, Maria Ressa and Rappler from Philippines, Nika Gvaramia from Georgia and NewsClick from India.

According to the report, the economic charges most frequently misused by governments seeking to silence press were money laundering, tax evasion, blackmail, terrorism financing, fraud, and illegally receiving foreign funds.

Observing that “the charges are linked to the outlet’s (NewsClick) critical coverage of India’s ruling political party,” the WAN-IFRA report calls it a “worrying example of where broad anti-terrorism laws are applied to silence critical media outlets” and states that “it illustrates efforts to cut the few revenue streams for independent media in a country where all major outlets are aligned with the ruling party, the BJP.”

According to the report, both Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and the amendments to the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) in 2009 were “brought in under the auspices of the global terror financing and money laundering watchdog, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).” The report says that the “misuse of these laws against NewsClick is indicative of the abuse of anti-terror laws for political purposes.”

The NewsClick was raided in both 2021 and 2023 and its founder and veteran journalist Prabir Puryakastha and head of human resources Amit Chakravarty were arrested as part of an investigation into suspected foreign funding of the news portal. Later, Chakraborty turned as an approver in the case. In May this year, Supreme Court of India had said it felt “no hesitation” to declare the arrest and remand of Prabir Purkayastha under the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) by the Delhi Police as “invalid in the eyes of law”, requiring his release from custody.

The report also identifies five main trends. Firstly, it notes that the “threat of imprisonment that those economic charges pose has a strong chilling effect in the media community”. Second, since “financial charges correspond to criminal law, many prosecutions result in lengthy pre-trial detention, prison terms and hefty fines” and the consequences include “financial loss/ruin and closure of the media outlet’s operations.” Third trend is that during the investigation and trial, journalists and media outlets are often “denied access to bank accounts and have their assets frozen, hampering their finances.”

Fourth trend, the report notes, is that the “lawyers defending such cases are increasingly attacked” as legal defence against such charges are costly and require “access to tax and criminal lawyers, accounting experts, and other legal expertise to which journalists and media outlets do not have easy access.” The fifth trend, the report points out that the narratives put out around such charges aim to “label journalists as criminals, erode public support, and attack the journalist’s or media outlet’s reputation.”