A banner with the image of Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar is seen at the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara temple, site of his June 2023 killing, in Surrey.CHRIS HELGREN/Reuters
An international press freedom advocate is raising concern about New Delhi’s treatment of an Australian Broadcasting Corporation journalist who says she ran into trouble renewing her visa after the Indian government expressed anger at her reporting on the slaying of a Canadian Sikh separatist.
Avani Dias, ABC News South Asia bureau chief, left her New Delhi office last week to return home to Australia.
Ms. Dias’s visa trouble followed a move by New Delhi to block from YouTube in India a March episode of an ABC show, Foreign Correspondent, that focused on the June, 2023, killing of Canadian Hardeep Singh Nijjar. Mr. Nijjar had advocated to create a Sikh homeland that would include part of India’s Punjab state and Canada has alleged India was behind his death.
ABC News reported that Ms. Dias was told of the visa decision via a phone call from an official at India’s Ministry of External Affairs, who said her most recent Foreign Correspondent episode “crossed a line.”
“We were also told my election accreditation would not come through because of an Indian ministry directive,” Ms. Dias, who had been based in India since 2022, posted on the social-media platform X on Tuesday.
In a Tuesday statement, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said Indian authorities should safeguard press freedom and stop using visa regulations to prevent foreign journalists covering sensitive subjects.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is seeking a rare third consecutive term in elections this year.
ABC reported that after weeks of lobbying by Australian diplomats and the office of Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong, the Indian government finally overturned its decision and renewed Ms. Dias’s visa for two months. This came less than 24 hours before she was due to leave the country. She left anyway.
“It felt too difficult to do my job in India. I was struggling to get into public events run by Modi’s party, the government wouldn’t even give me the passes I need to cover the election and the ministry left it all so late, that we were already packed up and ready to go,” Ms. Dias said in her ABC podcast, Looking for Modi.
In this podcast, she recounted the call she got from an Indian official warning her what should have been a routine visa extension application was not going to take place “and that I would have to leave the country in just a couple of weeks.” Ms. Dias said the official “specifically said it was because of my Sikh separatist story, saying it had gone too far.”
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau drew India’s ire last fall when he accused New Delhi of a role in Mr. Nijjar’s gangland-style slaying. His public allegation triggered a diplomatic rift and New Delhi stripped 41 Canadian diplomats of their diplomatic protections. In March, the Indian government also requested YouTube block access in that country to a Canadian Broadcasting Corp. story on Mr. Nijjar’s slaying.
India’s envoy to Canada, High Commissioner Sanjay Kumar Verma, was asked for comment on the Dias case and whether Canadian journalists are welcome in his country. He said all reporters are invited to travel there. “Journalists from all over the world, including those from Canada, are welcome to visit India for professional or leisure purposes,” he said in a statement. “They need to follow prescribed guidelines and processes to obtain the appropriate India visa.”
After the Dias matter made headlines, unnamed Indian government officials were quoted in Indian newspapers rebutting her account of what happened, suggesting the shooting of the March 21 Foreign Correspondent episode, “Sikhs, Murder and Spies,” failed to obtain necessary permissions, among other things.
Kunal Majumder, CPJ’s India representative, said in a statement on Tuesday the case of Ms. Dias is not an isolated incident.
“Foreign correspondents in India have faced increasing pressure and harassment from authorities, particularly when reporting on topics deemed unfavorable to the administration. Such actions not only infringe upon the rights of journalists but also deprive the public of access to important information and diverse perspectives.”
The latest report on India by advocacy group Reporters Without Borders says press freedom is in crisis there. “Journalists who try to cover anti-government strikes and protests are often arrested and sometimes detained arbitrarily.”
Steven Chase