His Excellency Atal Behari Vajpayee

Prime Minister, Republic of India

Office of the Prime Minister

New Delhi, India

110 011

Fax: +91 11 301 6857

July 16, 2001

Your Excellency,

Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE), a non-profit, non-governmental organization dedicated to fighting for freedom of expression as stipulated in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, wishes to protest the recent prosecution of Vineet Narain, editor of the New Delhi-based investigative journal Kalchakra.

Contempt of court charges issued by the Jammu and Kashmir State were brought against Narain as a result of the paper's investigation into Jammu and Kashmir High Court justice T.S. Doabia's involvement in resolving a land dispute. The article in question was published in the December 16, 2000 issue of Kalchakra. In it, it was suggested that a friendship with Indian Supreme Court chief justice A.S. Anand (former chief justice of the Jammu/Kashmir High Court) had unjustifiably influenced Doabia's decisions to help Anand secure legal victories for close family members and associates in various property disputes.

Mr Narain made a request to the High Court for a venue change (to New Delhi) for the court hearing, yet was instead granted relocation to Jammu, a place he feels threatened for his life. Mr Narain says he fears threats posed by militant groups in Kashmir who were angered by his investigations into their underground funding networks. Mr Narain is well known in India for exposing the so-called hawala scam, a US$18 million dollar bribery scandal that implicated some of the country's leading politicians. He reported that some of those allegedly involved in channelling payoffs to politicians were also responsible for transferring money to militant groups in Kashmir, including the Hezb-ul Mujahedeen. The Indian government acknowledged the potential threat to Mr Narain's safety by providing him with special security protection between 1996 and 1998, at the height of efforts to prosecute those involved in the hawala scandal. Now, however, Mr Narain feels that local officials have essentially ignored all requests for his protection while in Kashmir.

CJFE believes that this case demonstrates an abuse of the contempt of court law, which should never be used to shield members of the judiciary from scrutiny by the press. CJFE asks for a prompt inquiry into the possible political motivations behind Mr Narain's prosecution as well as to provide him with protection if required to appear in court in Jammu.

Sincerely,

Sharmini Peries

Executive Director