Groups of media persons comes up to campaign against arbitrary detention of Kishorechandra

IT News

Imphal, Dec 23,

A group of mediapersons today started campaigning against the arbitrary detention of Kishorechandra Wangkhem and issued a joint statement over the issue.

The media persons irrespective of their affiliations to the apex journalists’ body in the state, All Manipur Working Journalists’ Union, placed on record the following points in the aftermath of the detention of Kishorechandra Wangkhem, a TV journalist previously employed with Information and Service Television Network.

The points are-

“We neither endorse nor encourage the expletives-filled rant and rave on social media by the now detained journalist which we feel was in bad taste. However, we would like to leave it to the wisdom of the law courts to decide whether he is liable to be sent to jail for his conduct.

“Under these circumstances, we also cannot help condemning the government’s action of trampling on the fundamental rights of the TV journalist to express his opinions freely by detaining him under the draconian National Security Act, despite disagreeing with the manner in which he expressed them soon after a law court released him on bail.  We strongly feel that his detention under the NSA is grossly undemocratic. The journalist has been framed on whimsical ground. Mere expletives used by an individual while criticizing a government or its representatives can never be a threat to national security. 

“Moreover, the decision of the All Manipur Working Journalists’ Union to distance itself from the arrested scribe by announcing that he is not a journalist and was simply a translator and anchor is extremely unfortunate. AMWJU cannot speak for all the journalists in Manipur regardless of their affiliation with it or not. In our opinion, Kishorechandra was a journalist and still remains so”, the statement said.