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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.<\/p>\n
According to Kashmir Media Service, in a report released this week, RSF said it analysed OpIndia\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
RSF said many of the articles used hostile and inflammatory language, portraying journalists as \u201canti-national\u201d, \u201canti-India\u201d, \u201cliars\u201d or \u201cfake news peddlers\u201d, and that such reporting frequently triggered coordinated harassment campaigns on social media platform X.<\/p>\n
\u201cOpIndia is a central cog in the systematic harassment of journalists in India, which puts them in very real danger,\u201d RSF Editorial Director Anne Bocand\u00e9 said. She added that online harassment had become one of the biggest threats to press freedom in India.<\/p>\n
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 \u201cfake information\u201d and describing him as an \u201cIslamist\u201d. The watchdog said the articles were followed by a surge of online abuse.<\/p>\n
RSF said OpIndia\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
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 \u201canti-India\u201d or \u201canti-Hindu\u201d campaigns.<\/p>\n
The organisation also raised concerns about OpIndia\u2019s funding, saying the site continues to generate revenue through Google AdSense despite earlier advertiser boycotts. RSF said this was troubling because Google\u2019s policies prohibit content that promotes hatred or discrimination.<\/p>\n
RSF urged Indian authorities to investigate cyber harassment campaigns linked to such publications and called on social media companies to act against abusive content. \u201cProtecting journalists from online harassment is essential to defending press freedom in India,\u201d Bocand\u00e9 said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":190758,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[5],"class_list":["post-190742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hindutva","tag-top-story"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t