Yesterday, one of our reporters, Melanie Bennet, received a notice from X that she was being investigated by Punjab’s Cyber Crime Police for allegedly violating Indian law by covering something happening right here in Canada.
The police force requested X remove all content related to specific journalistic coverage, but fortunately, X decided to tell us about it instead.
Of course, this came as a major shock to us. An Indian police force requested that an American platform censor a Canadian journalist for covering issues pertinent to Canadians.
As absurd as it sounds, this is where we are at in Canada, and we are taking this threat seriously.
As part of our investigation into the pipeline of people coming from India to Canada, we had planned to go all the way, right to the source, and were going to send our journalists to India to report on the situation on the ground.
However, the police request raises serious questions about the risks our journalists could face if they pursue this work, which is why we need qualified legal advice, representation, and the right protections in place before we make any decisions about their travel or the next stage of the reporting.
As such, we are now looking for your support to allow our journalists to do what they need to do and to protect them should anything happen down the road.
You can click the link below to make a donation and help us overcome this threat to our independent journalism.
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India must be panicking so you must be close to their corruption