NEW YORK, Mar 30 (APP): The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), an independent watchdog body, Wednesday called on India to immediately reverse their decision to block Rana Ayyub, a prominent Indian investigative journalist, from traveling outside the country, saying the action was “unjustified.”
On Tuesday, immigration officials at the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport in the western city of Mumbai stopped Ms Ayyub, who has frequently criticized the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s policies and politics, and told her she was not allowed to travel to London, CPJ said citing news reports and the journalist, who spoke with the New York-based body.
Airport officials told Ms Ayyub, who is also a Washington Post commentator, that she could not leave the country because she was the subject of a recently opened money laundering investigation and that the Enforcement Directorate of the Indian finance ministry was sending her a summons to appear on April 1, 2022, Ayyub told CPJ.
Ayyub received the emailed summons one hour before her flight departure.
“Preventing Rana Ayyub from traveling abroad is another incident in a growing list of unjustified and excessive actions taken by the Indian government against the journalist,” Steven Butler, CPJ’s Asia programme coordinator, said in a statement from Washington, D.C.
“Indian authorities should immediately cease all forms of harassment and intimidation against Ayyub,” he added.
The Enforcement Directorate froze Ayyub’s bank account in February and accused her of laundering money that she raised to help those affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, it was pointed out. Ms Ayyub has denied the allegations and called it an attempt to intimidate her. The account also included income that Ayyub earned writing for The Washington Post and a newsletter on Substack, according to a Substack post by Ms Ayyub.
Ms Ayyub was flying to London to speak at an event about online violence against female journalists organized by the International Center for Journalists, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, according to those news reports. Ayyub has been subjected to intense online trolling and received numerous threats, as CPJ has documented.
The Ministry of Home Affairs, which oversees the country’s immigration authorities, and the Enforcement Directorate did not immediately respond to CPJ’s request for comment sent via email, CPJ said.
