TUR condemns ST management for sacking journalists

Syllad | The Rising MeghalayaSeptember 11, 2020

The Thma U Rangli Juki (TUR) on Friday condemned the management of The Shillong Times for the alleged illegal termination of three senior journalists.

The sacked journalists include EM Jose (News Editor), Nabamita Mitra (Features Editor) and Dipankar Roy (Executive Editor).

“This termination without notice is against all existing labour and press laws. The Shillong Times is the richest media house in Meghalaya which receives the highest number of both state and private advertisements. It is clearly unjustified that they should use the COVID pandemic to indulge in illegal anti-journalist action,” TUR leader Angela Rangad said in a statement issued here.

She said the management had anyway made hefty pay cuts using the pandemic as an excuse.

She said The Shillong Times management including its editor made a big deal about the declaration of the newspaper office as a containment zone and claimed that this was an attack on press freedom.

“But Press Freedom is not the freedom for the management to hire and fire at will but hinges on the protection of the rights of the working journalists,” she said.

Meanwhile, the TUR demands that the journalists should be immediately reinstated and compensated for the mental torture they have been put through and all the pay cuts should be rescinded.

It also expressed solidarity with the illegally terminated journalists and the ongoing protests by their colleagues even as it promises to render all help, legal and otherwise to the struggling journalist fraternity.