The Working Journalists of India (WJI) and the Indian Federation of Working Journalists (IFWJ) have demanded that the Mumbai Police should withdraw the FIRs filed against the editorial team of Republic Media Network.
The unions said that "it is worse than what had happened during the infamous Emergency of 1975."
Veteran journalist and former coordinator of the International Federation of Journalists KN Gupta who presided over the webinar also condemned the police action.
Similarly, Narender Bhandari of WJI and Parmanand Pandey of the IFWJ along with other prominent journalists asked the Maharashtra government to immediately withdraw these FIRs against journalists as this amount to curbing the freedom of press as enshrined in the Indian Constitution.
Earlier, the National Union of Journalists (India) had also expressed shock and condemned the action of Mumbai Police booking the entire editorial staff of Republic Media Network in an FIR.
The union has also requested the Press Council of India to take suo-motu cognisance of the matter involving free and independent functioning of the media.
( With inputs from ANI )
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