Another French journalist has been forced to leave India after the authorities refused to renew his work permit, the second such case this year.
Based in India since 2011, Sébastien Farcis, pictured, reported for the French daily newspaper Libération and the French public radio broadcasters RFI and Radio France. The Ministry of Home Affairs refused to renew his work permit in March. He says this was without any explanation and repeated appeals to the ministry were ignored.
Mr Farcis said in a statement that he was deeply shocked by this “incomprehensible censorship” after working as a journalist in India for 13 years. “This is also a family heartbreak,” he added. “I am married to an Indian woman and I have permanent resident status, called Overseas Citizen of India. This ban therefore drives us out without explanation, and uproots us from one day to the next.”*
The move follows the recent departure from India of Vanessa Dougnac, a French journalist who had been working there for 20 years for such French-language media as La Croix, Le Soir and Le Point. She had been refused a new work permit and threatened with the loss of her residence permit. According to Mr Farcis, at least five foreign correspondents with Overseas Citizen of India status have been banned from working as journalists in the past two years.
A spokesperson for the French media body RSF – Reporters Without Borders – said the measures should be seen as a warning to all journalists. She said Indian authorities were escalating the use of retaliatory measures against foreign correspondents, including denying them access to regions, shortening visas or refusing permits, while at the same time establishing mechanisms for harassing the national media at all levels.
On World Press Freedom Day in May, a gathering of ten human rights organisations in New York issued a statement accusing the Indian authorities of increasingly targeting journalists and online critics for their criticism of government policies and practices, including by prosecuting them under counterterrorism and sedition laws.
It said the Indian authorities should respect the right to freedom of expression and release any journalists detained on trumped-up or politically motivated charges for their critical reporting and stop targeting journalists and muzzling independent media.
The authorities’ targeting of journalists, coupled with a broader crackdown on dissent, has emboldened Hindu nationalists to threaten, harass, and abuse journalists critical of the Indian government, both online and offline, with impunity, the groups said.
