Fact-Finding Mission Report
EGI received several representations that the media in Manipur was playing a partisan role in the ongoing ethnic conflict between the majority Meitei community and the Kuki-Chin minority. On July 12, 2023, when the conflict had already been going on for a little over two months, the EGI also received a written complaint from the Indian Army’s 3rd Corps headquarters citing specific examples of the media in Manipur suggesting that it may be playing “a major role in arousing passion and not letting sustainable peace to come in”. A three-member team comprising Ms. Seema Guha, Mr. Bharat Bhushan, and Mr. Sanjay Kapoor was sent to Manipur to examine the media reportage in the state. The team visited Manipur from August 7 to 10.
The report was released on September 2, 2023, and is available at the following link
Responses to EGI report
The Editors Guild of India has received comments from a few media organizations as well as civil society groups, on the report written by the fact-finding committee that visited Manipur to study media’s coverage of the ethnic violence in the state. As has been stated in our earlier statements, the underlying idea of the report was to enable introspection and reflection on the media’s conduct in such a sensitive situation. The fact finding team met representatives from more than 20 organisations, besides independent journalists, civil society activists and citizens. The report has been prepared taking into account all the perspectives shared with the team, including of those who have now written to us and contested some of our findings and conclusions. The fact finding mission has prepared the report on the basis of their understanding of the situation as a neutral apolitical body. We acknowledge the right of those who have different views and competing perspectives to have disagreements with our report and wherever a factual error may have crept in we are open to correction. Therefore, in the interest of transparency and to give space to competing views, we are publishing below the comments sent to us in full. We are open to receiving views and narratives from any side, and subject only to the assessment that such comments do not cause any further disharmony, discord and escalation of violence we will not hesitate to engage.
Response from Editors Guild of Manipur and AMWJU
Response from Solidarity Manipur
Acknowledgements
EGI thanks all members of media, civil society, armed forces, relief organisations, as well as citizens who met the fact finding team during their four day visit. The team met members of more than 20 organisations.
EGI also thanks all our members and others who responded to the call of making contributions for meeting expenses of Fact Finding Mission on Media reporting in Manipur
- The Guild received a total of 31 contributions
- Of these, 28 were from members of EGI and three were from non-members
- A total of Rs. 2,77,280 was raised
- The total expenses for the fact finding trip were Rs. 1,19,440, and the surplus of Rs. 1,57,840, has been transferred to the corpus for future utilization
After reports of the Tripura government using draconian laws to deter journalists and civil society activists from reporting on the communal violence in the state began cause a major concern, the Editors’ Guild of India decided to send a three-member fact-finding team to the state. The members of the team were independent journalist Bharat Bhushan, General Secretary of the Editors’ Guild, Sanjay Kapoor, and Editor of ‘Imphal Review of Arts and Politics’ Pradip Phanjoubam. The team visited Tripura from November 28 to December 1, 2021. It met a cross- section of journalists, representatives of the state government, including the Chief Minsiter, ministers and the Director General of Police, as well as civil society activists, to assess the state of media freedom in Tripura.