His jail time was marked by two massive lockdowns. Accused of waging war against India, Kashmiri journalist Qazi Shibli told Brut how much he missed the pen in prison.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00We were initially denied access to clean water, clean drinking water, then after the hunger strike they gave us potable water.
00:08My crime was that I had committed journalism.
00:30When this COVID-19 thing happened, I'm unsure whether we were released because of that, but there's a fact for certain, for sure, that when COVID-19 happened, the Supreme Court passed an order. I guess that's what we were told inside the jail.
01:00These three stories of mine, I was questioned regarding. These three stories were, of course, based on facts and I had cross-checked and re-verified my facts with concerned people, whether it was officials, however a journalistic organization or a journalist operates. I had undertaken all those procedures.
01:25See, 10 days after my detention at a local police station, I was shifted to an unknown location. It was not actually unknown, but I was not informed officially where I was being taken. So I was taken to a hospital from where I was shifted to the Joint Interrogation Center here in the District of Anantna, from where I was shifted to Central Jail of Srinagar, from where the next morning we were shifted to District Jail Bareilly.
01:48When I saw these policemen who always pocketed a pen, and when I saw this pen, so I literally begged every policeman to give me a pen so that I can hold it and just write my name. So the craving for the pen was the most intense throughout the course of these nine months, but I was never given any access.
02:08So we started this hunger strike and the demand was, the demand was solitary. In fact, there were two demands. The first one being that give us, give us, give me my books back and give me a piece of paper and a pen. And also we were initially denied access to clean water, clean drinking water. Then, then after the hunger strike, they gave us portable water.
02:32With the sort of censorship press in Kashmir is facing, journalism has become a double-edged, has become like walking on a double-edged sword. And, you know, everybody in Kashmir, the journalists that I have met in the past few days, you know, everybody is reconsidering journalism as a career, which is very sad in a democratic setup.
02:53My crime was, my crime was that I had committed journalism.