The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of South Asia’s former member Journalist Pankaj Yadav has revealed the names of journalists in the club who were responsible for cancelling Filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri’s press conference on May 5 in Delhi. On Tuesday, the Foreign Correspondents Club in New Delhi had cancelled the press conference of the ‘The Kashmir Files’ director, who was in the city to discuss the truth about the Kashmiri Hindu Genocide and his film ‘the Kashmir Files’.
IMPORTANT: ALL MEDIA
— Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri (@vivekagnihotri) May 3, 2022
1. Foreign Correspondents Club, New Delhi has cancelled my PC on 5th May in an undemocratic manner as part of a hate-campaign against #TheKashmirFiles.
2. I am holding an open-house PC at the Press Club of India on the 5th at 4 PM.
All media are invited. pic.twitter.com/aDFbS9FteB
Filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri has become a victim of a hate campaign since it has been revealed that journalist-members of the FCC associated with foreign media houses had threatened to pull down Agnihotri’s scheduled press conference. He took to Twitter yesterday to allege that some powerful media persons had objected to the event while threatening that they would resign en masse if the conference is held. On Wednesday, Journalist Pankaj Yadav revealed on Twitter that PCC President Munish Gupta was threatened by its governing board members to cancel Vivek Agnihotri’s Press Conference.
Yadav who claimed to have an ‘insider’s view’ wrote on Twitter, “(I) am in the governing committee of PCC New Delhi. President Munish Gupta cancelled Vivek Agnihotri’s May 5 Press conference at the Club after office bearers Emily Schmall, Sebastian Farcis, Tawqeer Hussian and Kumkum Chadha threatened to resign from Governing Committee if it was allowed.”
He further noted that Emily Schmall is India Correspondent for the New York Times. is Correspondent for Radio France Internationale and Libération in India and South Asia. Tawqeer Hussain is the Correspondent of Yomiuri Shimbun, a conservative Japanese newspaper and Kumkum Chadha is the Correspondent of Independent Television from Bangladesh. It may be noted that Pankaj Yadav, contrary to his claims of currently being a member, was expelled from the Governing Committee and membership of the Club in November 2021 for allegedly carrying out ‘continuous acts of misconduct’.
Talking about the incident, Agnihotri in his video had added that the Foreign Correspondents Club had made unusual demands for food and cocktails at the press conference and at their request, the team of Zee Studios had made all the arrangements for the logistics.
On May 4, after the Foreign Correspondents Club, New Delhi cancelled Agnihotri’s Press Conference scheduled for May 5, The Press Club of India did the same claiming that no bookings for the event were done. However, the filmmaker posted proofs of the same on his Twitter profile, following the accusation. Agnihotri and his team now plans to host an independent press conference for journalists at Hotel Le Meridian on May 5 at 3:30 PM.
