(RSF/IFEX) – The English-language private daily “Kashmir Observer”, published in Srinagar, north-western India, has been experiencing serious financial difficulties ever since the Jammu and Kashmir state government decided to stop purchasing advertising space in the publication’s pages. RSF is concerned about the consequences of the new provincial government’s discriminatory policies, which could have grave long-term […]
(RSF/IFEX) – The English-language private daily “Kashmir Observer”, published in Srinagar, north-western India, has been experiencing serious financial difficulties ever since the Jammu and Kashmir state government decided to stop purchasing advertising space in the publication’s pages.
RSF is concerned about the consequences of the new provincial government’s discriminatory policies, which could have grave long-term implications for information pluralism in the Kashmir region. The organisation has asked Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, Jammu and Kashmir’s chief minister, to distribute official advertising among media outlets in the province in an equitable manner, free of political criteria.
In late January 2003, the provincial government stopped buying advertising space in the “Kashmir Observer” newspaper. Some officials told the newspaper’s editorial staff that the paper had been crossed off the list of media outlets entitled to such contracts.
In a 15 January editorial, “Kashmir Observer” editor and publisher Sajjad Haider had objected to the provincial government’s attitude toward his newspaper, and criticised the authorities’ delayed payments for official publicity. “This reluctance to pay advertising invoices is a subtle and insidious form of coercion. The government needs to be reminded that newspapers here are working solely to protect [the] public interest,” he wrote. Haider is the son-in-law of Molvi Abbas Ansari, one of the leaders of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, a separatist alliance. This family tie could well be the motive behind the boycott. The newspaper has also been suspected of illegally holding funds from abroad that are being used to aid the separatist movement.
As a result of the conflict that has been tearing Kashmir apart since 1990, major companies have been leaving the province, thus depriving the media of advertising revenues. Official advertising and announcements represent the main source of financing for Indian dailies such as the “Kashmir Observer”.
