Pro-Hindutva website OpIndia running organized campaign of harassment against journalists: RSF
Paris: Paris-based global press freedom watchdog, Reporters Without Borders (RSF), has said that the pro-Hindutva news website OpIndia is running an organised campaign of harassment against journalists in India, warning that its reporting has contributed to online abuse, threats and safety risks for media professionals.
According to Kashmir Media Service, in a report released this week, RSF said it analysed OpIndia’s content between October 2023 and September 2025 and identified at least 314 articles targeting journalists and media organisations. Of these, 208 pieces named 134 journalists directly, while others targeted reporters indirectly or attacked independent news platforms. The report said that OpIndia, founded in 2014, is closely aligned with the supremacist Hindu nationalist ideology Hindutva.
RSF said many of the articles used hostile and inflammatory language, portraying journalists as “anti-national”, “anti-India”, “liars” or “fake news peddlers”, and that such reporting frequently triggered coordinated harassment campaigns on social media platform X.
“OpIndia is a central cog in the systematic harassment of journalists in India, which puts them in very real danger,” RSF Editorial Director Anne Bocandé said. She added that online harassment had become one of the biggest threats to press freedom in India.
According to RSF, prominent journalists including Rajdeep Sardesai, Arfa Khanum Sherwani, Mohammed Zubair, Ravish Kumar and Rana Ayyub were among those most frequently targeted. Independent media organisations such as The Wire, NewsClick and Newslaundry were also repeatedly singled out, the group said. RSF highlighted the case of independent journalist Meer Faisal, who it said was targeted by OpIndia articles published in June 2024 accusing him of spreading “fake information” and describing him as an “Islamist”. The watchdog said the articles were followed by a surge of online abuse.
RSF said OpIndia’s articles often triggered coordinated harassment on social media platform X, with the group identifying links in several cases to Telegram groups associated with Hindu nationalist networks where members openly called for journalists to be targeted.
The report said foreign correspondents working in India, including Hannah Ellis-Petersen, correspondent for The Guardian, and Avani Dias, journalist with ABC News, were also targeted in a similar way after being accused online of running “anti-India” or “anti-Hindu” campaigns.
The organisation also raised concerns about OpIndia’s funding, saying the site continues to generate revenue through Google AdSense despite earlier advertiser boycotts. RSF said this was troubling because Google’s policies prohibit content that promotes hatred or discrimination.
RSF urged Indian authorities to investigate cyber harassment campaigns linked to such publications and called on social media companies to act against abusive content. “Protecting journalists from online harassment is essential to defending press freedom in India,” Bocandé said.
