CPJ urges India to stop harassing Kerala journalist for reporting anti-Muslim bias in police

NEW YORK, Dec 01 (APP): The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), an international watchdog body, has called on Indian authorities to stop investigating journalist Rejaz Sheeba Sydeek over his report on anti-Muslim bias in the police force, return his mobile phone, and cease harassing his colleagues at Maktoob Media news website. “Launching a police investigation into Maktoob Media journalists over a report accusing the police of anti-Muslim bias sets a perilous precedent,” Kunal Majumder, CPJ’s India representative, said in a statement on Thursday.

“Kerala police must drop their investigation into reporter Rejaz M Sheeba Sydeek, return his phone, and allow the press to publish news that is in the public interest,” he said. According to media reports, Kerala police initiated a criminal investigation against Sydeek for allegedly “giving provocation with the intent to cause a riot” under Section 153 of the Penal Code and took his mobile phone. The investigation was in relation to Sydeek’s October 30 news report for Maktoob Media, in which Muslim men who were detained following an explosion at a Jehovah’s Witnesses convention last month accused the police of anti-Muslim bias.

A former member of the congregation claimed responsibility for the blast in which six people died, those sources said. On November 16 and 17, the police interrogated Sydeek and Maktoob Media’s founder and editor Aslah Kayyalakkath and took a statement from deputy editor Shaheen Abdulla, those news sources and Sydeek said. Sydeek and Abdulla told CPJ that the police took Sydeek’s mobile phone and refused to provide a “hash value,” a unique identifier to ensure the device was not tampered with. Additionally, Sydeek accused the police of threatening him with additional legal actions including invoking non-bailable sections of the law. Abdulla said that Maktoob Media had been singled out for reporting on an important story that sought to hold the police accountable and described the police investigation as “arbitrary.” Sydeek told CPJ that he followed due process while filing his report, including by reaching out to police for comment and quoting them in his story. CPJ said it emailed the Kerala Director General of Police, Shaik Darvesh Saheb, but did not receive any response.