The action against NewsClick is a “chilling attempt to silence their brave voices”, a group of prominent citizens said on Thursday.

They raised alarm two days after the Delhi Police raided several journalists associated with the digital news organisation and later sealed NewsClick’s office following allegations that it received money to spread Chinese propaganda.

The police have arrested the website’s editor-in-chief Prabir Purkayastha and human resources head Amit Chakraborty under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act.

NewsClick said that the police seized electronic devices from its office and the homes of its employees without giving the owners a “hash value” of the devices. A hash value is a unique number used to ensure that a device and its data have not been tampered with. The police have also not provided a copy of the first information report to Purkayastha and Chakraborty.

On Thursday, a statement signed by activists V Geetha and Aruna Roy, authors Geetanjali Shree, KR Meera and Perumal Murugan, historian Ramachandra Guha, journalist P Sainath and musician TM Krishna said that the government is trying to vilify journalists who have consistently and fearlessly spoken truth to power.

The statement added, “Criticism is essential for a democracy and any attempt to mute voices is an assault on India’s democratic spirit.”

The statement said that seizing the electronic devices of the journalists violates their privacy and that the action was illegal as it was done without a court order.

Noting that there have been reports about manufactured evidence being planted on the confiscated devices of activists booked under the anti-terror law, the group raised concerns that similar attempts could be made against NewsClick journalists.

The statement was referring to reports by digital forensics firm Arsenal Consulting that found that computers were hacked to plant evidence against advocate Surendra Gadling and activists Rona Wilson and Stan Swamy in the Bhima Koregaon case.

“We urge stakeholders and concerned citizens to speak up against this harassment of NewsClick and its contributors,” the group said on Thursday. “At this dark moment, we record our deep appreciation of NewsClick’s stellar work in journalism and stand firmly in solidarity with all its staff and contributors.”

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Case against ‘NewsClick’

NewsClick has been in the central agencies’ radar for a while now. In February 2021, the Enforcement Directorate had raided NewsClick in a case of alleged unlawful foreign funding.

On August 5, The New York Times published a report claiming that NewsClick had received funds from a network centred around American millionaire Neville Roy Singham to push pro-China propaganda around the world.

At the time, Purkayastha told Scroll that the allegations about the organisation functioning as a mouthpiece of the Communist Party of China were false.

On Wednesday, NewsClick again asserted that it does not take directions from Singham regarding the content published on its website.