Thiruvananthapuram: Veteran Congress leader and former Kerala chief minister A.K. Antony has called for an end to the threat faced by journalists in Kerala from advocates in the state.
“It is unfortunate that some advocates continue to prevent journalists from doing their job. Appropriate action must be taken against such lawyers for such criminal activity,” the former chief minister said.
Lawyers in Kerala have been preventing journalists from carrying out court reporting ever since media carried a news report about a government pleader, Dhanesh Mathew Manjooran, who was accused of molesting a woman in Kochi.
Over the past couple of months, several incidents of journalists being roughed up on court premises have been reported. In the latest incident, earlier this month at the vigilance court in Thiruvananthapuram, a group of journalists were forcibly evicted from the court by lawyers.
In a bizarre turn of events, police later registered cases against the journalists, including two women journalists.
Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee president V.M. Sudheeran said the “bogus cases” registered against the journalists could never be justified. He said the police were standing by a group of lawyers who were indulging in criminal activity.
Reputed journalist and lawyer Sebastian Paul commented that when lawyers interrupt the work of media persons, it amounts to something more severe than censorship. “Even when there was censorship during the Emergency period in India, there had been no ban on news gathering,” he said.
Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan and state high court chief justice Mohan Santhana Gouder had held a meeting to resolve the differences between lawyers and journalists but an undeclared ban on journalists on court premises has prevented free reporting of news from the courts.
