Tablighi Jamaat-Coronavirus Media Coverage was Islamophobic, Inaccurate and Biased: PUCL

New Delhi, 07 Sep 2020 [Fik/News Sources]: The media coverage of the Tablighi Jamaat Markaz issue in the initial days of the coronavirus-induced lockdown was Islamophobic, inaccurate and biased, According to a report by the People Union Of Civil Liberties, a civil society group.

The report on ‘the state of media in Covid pandemic in India’ says that the use of words like “corona Jihad” in the media triggered fears into the minds of the people.

Citing a media analysis by the Businessline newspaper, the report said between March 20 and April 27, a total of 11,074 stories were published from 271 mediasources with the term ‘Tablighi Jamaat’, of which 94 percent were English stories that appeared in the print media.

The Tablighi Jamaat incident ‘provided an opportunity to some to generate fake content on social media connecting Muslims with Covid-19, said the report and accused some news media platforms of playing an insidious role by covering this content.

Around 1.5-10 per cent of the stories had words with negative connotations such as ‘violating’, ‘crime’, ‘spitting’, ‘terrorist’, and ‘jihad’. the report noted.

“These stories fed into an epidemic of Islamophobic fake news and hate speech. The fallout of this propaganda was disastrous for members of the Tablighi Jamaat. While they were demonised and derided on social media, some faced isolation and attacks.”

In the initial weeks of lockdown, India saw a resurgent wave of Islamophobia sweeping through the length and breadth of the country. Every day, reports of hate crimes against Muslims came to the fore. This was the result of a sustained vilification campaign systematically carried out by a large section of the mainstream media, social media and government against Tablighi Jamaat after their Nizamuddin Markaz emerged as one of the coronavirus clusters.

The report referred to the judgement by Justice TV Nalawade and Justice MG Sewlikar of the Aurangabad bench of the Bombay High Court quashing the FIRs lodged against 29 foreign nationals booked for alleged violation of their tourist visas under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, Epidemic Diseases Act, Maharashtra Police Act, Disaster Management Act and Foreigner’s Act.

“Their order pointed out that ‘there was big propaganda in print and electronic media against the foreigners who had come to Markaz Delhi and an attempt was made to create a picture that the foreigners were responsible for spreading Covid-19 in India.” The report says there was virtual persecution against these foreigners.

The report also notes how TV news channels baselessly blamed Muslims and Christian missionaries in the Pahalgarh lynching case.

The report also focuses on the financial stress on the media industry due to the economic crunch brought about by the lockdown but lashes out at big newspapers for firing journalists.

“In some media houses, journalists were forced to resign with barely a month’s wages as notice and given barely three hours to submit their resignations. It was as if these self-styled upholders of the nation’s conscience had never heard of the due process of law.”

The report highlights the attempts of the state to muzzle the free press as it asserts “every effort to speak truth to power must be assiduously nurtured and protected”.