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`A direct assault on the press'

By Our Staff Reporter

CHENNAI NOV. 8. The Editor-in-Chief of the Outlook Group, Vinod Mehta, condemned the action against The Hindu by the Tamil Nadu Assembly as a "direct assault on the freedom of the press" and said it must be resisted by all those who valued democracy and the Constitution.

He urged the State Government to revoke the arrest warrant against the members of The Hindu and to find a "mutually acceptable route to resolve the issue".

M.J. Akbar, Editor-in-Chief of Asian Age, said: "Any attempt to use the legislature to suppress the media is as reprehensible as any form of censorship. The actions of the Tamil Nadu Assembly cannot find any support among those who value a civilized democracy."

The Editor-in-Chief of India Today, Aroon Purie, said, "I think this is a very serious attack on the freedom of the press and I strongly condemn it. I believe the whole media should be supporting a well-respected publication like The Hindu in its fight against such arbitrary action."

Eminent jurist, V.R. Krishna Iyer, said that by sentencing the journalists for breach of privilege, the Tamil Nadu Assembly had sentenced itself for angry ignorance of privileges jurisprudence and contempt of Constitutional freedoms. The ominous casualty in this unwitting terrorism is not The Hindu but the people of India, he added.

In a signed editorial on the front page, the Managing Editor of the Tamil eveninger, Malai Murasu, B. Ramachandra Adithan, said the AIADMK had utilised its majority strength in the Assembly to "misuse" the powers conferred on the Legislature by the Constitution. Reminding its readers of Poet Tiruvalluvar's adage that a government without anyone to criticise would destroy itself, he said The Hindu's editorial had only pointed to the Government's failings. As citizens of the world's biggest democracy, Indians had risen as one to fight any threat to democracy. No self-respecting journalist could accept the grave situation that had arisen now to threaten the freedom of expression. Journalists would triumph over this threat.

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