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| Indian Journalist Sakshi Joshi |
New York, May 5, 2023 - (Tamsil Shahezad Khan) In a shocking incident that highlights the unsafe environment for women journalists in India, independent journalist Sakshi Joshi was assaulted and detained by police while covering a protest in the capital city of Delhi. The incident occurred in the early hours of May 3, when Joshi was attempting to film the deployment of police to the site of a protest held by women wrestlers over alleged sexual harassment.
According to Joshi and a statement by Digipub, an association of digital media journalists, a woman police officer ordered Joshi to stop recording. When Joshi refused, a group of officers grabbed her, pulled her hair, and ripped her pants before pushing her into a police bus. She was detained for about an hour and then released without charge.
Joshi, who posts her reporting on YouTube and has over 840,000 subscribers, had arrived at the scene after police reportedly assaulted women athletes protesting alleged sexual harassment by the head of the country’s wrestling foundation, who is also a member of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
The incident has sparked outrage among journalists and activists, who are calling on Indian authorities to conduct an immediate and impartial investigation into the police harassment, assault, and detention of Joshi and hold the officers responsible to account.
“The harassment, assault, and apparently unlawful detention of journalist Sakshi Joshi highlight the unsafe environment for women journalists in India,” said Beh Lih Yi, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator. “Indian authorities must swiftly hold all officers involved in this incident to account and ensure that the press may freely and safely cover critical events of public interest.”
Joshi has filed a complaint with the Delhi Police Commissioner, contesting her detention on the grounds that it violated a section of India’s criminal procedure code providing that no woman shall be arrested between sunset and sunrise without the prior permission of a judicial magistrate obtained by a woman police officer.
CPJ has called and messaged Hemant Tiwari, the senior officer who ordered Joshi's arrest, for comment but did not immediately receive any reply. Delhi Police Public Relations Officer Suman Nalwa declined to immediately comment, saying she was unaware of the details of the case.
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