French journalist Sébastien Farcis on Thursday claimed he has been “forcibly expelled” from India after the country’s Home Ministry refused to renew his press permit and barred from covering the 2024 general elections, the second such claim by a French journalist in four months.
“On June 17, I was forced to leave India, the country where I have lived and worked as a journalist for 13 years, as South Asia correspondent for Radio France International, Radio France, Liberation and Swiss and Belgian public radio,” Farcis said in a post on X on Thursday.
Farsis said the Interior Ministry refused to renew his journalistic permit on March 7 and informed him that he would be barred from covering the general elections.
“This seemed like censorship to me that I could not understand,” he wrote, adding that he had been working as a journalist in India since 2011 and had all the necessary visas and qualifications. “I have never… worked in a restricted or protected area without permission, and I have even been given permission by the Ministry of Home Affairs to report from border areas on several occasions,” he wrote.
He claims that the move will also affect his family as he is married to an Indian woman and has Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) status.
“This denial comes amid an alarming climate of tightening restrictions on the work of foreign journalists. After Vanessa Dougnac, I am the second French journalist in four months who has had to leave India under these circumstances. In less than two years, at least five OCI foreign correspondents have been banned from practicing journalism,” Farcis wrote.
HT has reached out to Farcis and the MHA for a response.
Dunyak was reportedly asked to leave India on February 16 after working as a journalist in the country for 23 years. Outlook reports that she is married to a man also from Haryana and has a son. In January, she was reportedly served with a notice of complaint by the Ministry of Home Affairs for writing “malicious” articles and prejudicing the “interests of sovereignty and unity of India”. The notice, she said, asked her to respond as to why her OCI card should not be cancelled.
In April, Avani Dias, an Australian journalist working in India as the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s (ABC) South Asia bureau chief, claimed she was forced to leave the country after the government told her it had refused to extend her visa and would not allow her to cover the general election because her reporting had “exceeded its limits.”
However, government officials later denied her version of events. Dias eventually tweeted that intervention by the Australian government had given her a two-month extension, but she still was not allowed to cover the Indian elections.
The NDA government cancelled at least 102 OCI cards between 2014 and May 2023, digital publication Article14 reported in February citing right to information responses.
OCI is a status created in 2005 under the Citizenship Act, 1955, which gives foreigners of Indian origin, or those married to Indian nationals, the right to enter India without a visa. It also allows them to live, work and own property in India.
In 2019, British journalist Atish Taseer lost his OCI status after a profile of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Time magazine was published with the headline “The architect of India’s division.” At the time, the Home Ministry said in a statement that Taseer had concealed information that his late father was from Pakistan.
