When Masrat Zahra, a 26-year-old independent photojournalist, learned that the Jammu & Kashmir Cyber Police had booked her for posting pictures on social media this April, the ground beneath her feet began to shift. Which law was she being charged under? She scrolled anxiously through her social media feed to check which post had landed her in trouble. Eventually, friends called. They explained that she was being booked under a draconian anti-terrorism law called the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).
This is not the first time that a woman journalist has been a police target in Kashmir. Women journalists are often disrespected or abused at the hands of government forces. In September 2019, after the special status of Jammu & Kashmir was removed and it was divided into two union territories by India's Bharatiya Janata Party-led government, a female journalist was harassed by security forces. She was travelling to a government-run media facilitation centre for work.
In Kashmir, the decade-long conflict has shaped the structure of news and newsrooms – consequently, all journalists are vulnerable to censorship and attacks. Aliya Iftikhar, senior Asia researcher at the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a non-profit which promotes press freedom, notes "Kashmir continues to be one of the most dangerous and difficult places in the world for journalists to work in." In recent years, and particularly since the communication blackout and media gag on 5 August, there has been severe escalation in the restrictions and threats faced by journalists. Despite the recent pandemic, the Indian government has continued its crackdown by launching criminal investigations against them.
Women, however, are particularly vulnerable. Geeta Seshu, a journalist and co-founder of the Free Speech Collective (FSC), explains that women face gendered harassment distinct from the problems journalists usually face. Women journalists must constantly negotiate risk on the field, face sexual harassment or vicious online trolling, and constantly prove themselves 'serious' professionals. For Seshu, the case against photojournalist Masrat Zahra is a message to women journalists from the security forces to "stay within acceptable social borders and not to go into areas of direct conflict". A joint-report by the FSC and Network of Women in Media India (NWMI) established that restrictions on mobility and heavily militarised roads are especially challenging for women journalists – a problem exacerbated by the fact that many do not own private transport.