Washington: The White House Monday denunciated trolling and online harassment of Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reporter Sabrina Siddiqui by BJP allied trolls and Narendra Modi supporters terming their acts “Antithetical to Democratic Values”.
"It's unacceptable. And we absolutely condemn any harassment of journalists anywhere under any circumstances. That's just - that's completely unacceptable”, John Kirby, White House National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications, said.
“And it's antithetical to the very principles of democracy that - you're right - were on display last week during the state visit," he added.
At a press conference at White House last week, Sabrina Siddiqui had highlighted the problems Muslims and other minorities are facing under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government in India.
She also asked the visiting premier about the steps his government would take to protect Muslims. Sabrina, daughter of an Indian father and Pakistani mother, is being trolled and harassed online because of her question to Modi and also due to her ethnicity.
Disturbed by the hate campaign against her Sabrina even shared some of his file photos and tweets wherein she is seen wearing T shirts supporting the Indian Cricket team, and how she and her father were eager to see the Indian team win the cricket world cup.
The White House condemnation came as the hate campaign against Sabrina ceased to stop despite her all-out efforts to prove her neutrality.
The White House calling the hate campaign against Sabrina “antithetical to the very principles of democracy” also is a very strong message to Modi government as the Prime Minister instead of directly answering to the question posed by Sabrina tried to play with words, boasting of how big a democracy India is!
“We are a democracy. Democracy is in our spirit, and flows in our veins. We live and breathe democracy”, Modi had responded to Sabrina’s direct question.
After John Kirby's statement, the White House Press Secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre went to the podium and said:
"I just want to reiterate a little bit what John said - we're certainly here at the White House under this administration, we are committed to freedom of the Press, which is why we had the press conference last week.”
“So just want to remind folks, that's why we had the press conference last week. Also, we certainly condemn any efforts of intimidation or harassment of any journalist that is just trying to do their job”, she said.
Meanwhile, many in India and abroad including the United States, feel that the way Sabrina is being trolled and harassed just proves that all is not well for ethnic minorities in India and that her question was true to the ground realties.
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