Kashmir Press Club condemns smear campaign against Kashmiri journalists

Kashmir Press Club has condemned the smear campaign against Kashmiri journalists by the Greek City Times, headquartered in Sydney, and later by Indian news outlets Zee News and IANS. The Club has alleged that the outlets published "factually incorrect and deliberately misleading" claims without proper fact-checking and has sought an unconditional apology.

Srinagar: The Kashmir Press Club has condemned the "false and motivated smear campaign against a Kashmiri journalist working in an international media organisation TRT."

The case in question relates to a story run by the Greek City Times, a “Greek lifestyle site” headquartered in Sydney which had made "factually incorrect and deliberately misleading" claims. Journalist Baba Umar who currently works with TRT World in Turkey in an email to Kashmir Press Club stated that dangerous false allegations were levelled in a factually incorrect and libellous article by the Greek City Times.

This baseless article was later amplified by Zee News and IANS without fact-checking or seeking the version of Baba, the club said.

Fact-checking websites Alt News and news portals like - Newslaundry, have also reported that the stories against Baba Umar are "factually incorrect and deliberately misleading".

The Kashmir Press Club further informed that once the facts were brought to the fore by Baba Umar, the Sydney based hitherto unknown "lifestyle" site also issued an apology but later on carried a fresh baseless and misleading article targeting Kashmiri journalists working abroad including Baba Umar.

"Just a few days ago, Zee News ran a news piece authored by Mr Manish Shukla..in which he claimed I have been interviewed by Pieter Friedrich", Baba Umar, who is a "senior producer" with TRT World, said in his testimony e-mailed to the Club. Baba said that he was never interviewed by Friedrich as claimed in the article.

He said that Zee News didn't even bother to check its own screengrab or watch the entire interview on YouTube "which clearly shows Friedrich had spoken with some Umar Baba, a researcher based in South Korea, NOT me"

"I don't even know Friedrich and was never ever interviewed by him.” he told the Club in the testimony adding "without checking the facts, Zee News, Indian Narrative, IANS, joined by several other Indian websites ran the impugned article originally loaned from a "dubious" Greek website. "The aim of this slander is to target me and endanger me and my family", he said.

"By saying I was engaged in carrying out motivated anti-India propaganda, some of the India news organisations have tried to damage my reputation, and now my family will have to live with the repercussions of such unfounded, callous, hateful, and motivated news reporting that also has prejudice, anti-minority, anti-Muslim and Islamophobic undertones",

The Kashmir Press Club while condemning the false labelling has demanded an unconditional apology from the Sydney based site and also urged it to pull down its malicious content targeting the Kashmiri journalists community.

The Kashmir Press Club also expects Zee News and IANS to pull down its malicious content targeting Kashmiri journalists and issue an unconditional apology to Baba Umar and other Kashmiri journalists.

The Club has also urged the Press Council of India, Press Club of India and also the Editors Guild of India to intervene and take steps against the smear and disinformation campaign based on falsehoods targeting Kashmiri journalists as it severely endangers their lives.

The Kashmir Press Club reiterated that the Kashmiri journalists have every right to write and report in Kashmir or anywhere in the world and should not be discriminated against because of their identity.