Foreign journalists increasingly refused permits, visas, access in India
Paris: Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has called upon India’s administration to stop arbitrarily exploiting its procedures for issuing journalist visas and permits to keep foreign correspondents in a state of limbo or prevent them from working altogether.
According to Kashmir Media Service, the Indian authorities have been escalating their use of retaliatory measures against foreign correspondents, including denying them access to regions, shortening visas or refusing permits.
These arbitrary practices have been highlighted by the case of Vanessa Dougnac, a French journalist who was threatened with expulsion in January for writing supposedly “malicious and critical” articles, and who has been deprived of the right to work in India for the past 17 months.
Her right to work as the holder of an Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) card – a residence permit issue to foreigners of Indian origin or those who are the spouses of Indian citizens – was suddenly refused in September 2022 without any grounds being given, although she had been covering India for 20 years for French-language media such as La Croix, Le Soir and Le Point.
Her case is far from isolated. Four OCI card-holding journalists have so far been refused permission to work. As a result, two of them decided to leave India altogether.
