India Raids ‘Pro-China’ News Site With US Link Amid Press Freedom Scrutiny

An alleged “pro-China” news site funded by an American millionaire has found itself at the center of a debate about press freedom in India after an extensive raid on Tuesday swept up 46 journalists and contributors.

Five hundred officers of the Delhi Police’s Special Cell searched more than 100 locations linked to NewsClick, whose editor Prabir Purkayastha and administrator Amit Chakraborty were among those detained. Law enforcement agencies seized electronic devices and sealed the news outlet’s office in New Delhi.

Indian authorities have invoked a stringent anti-terrorism law from 1967 to make their arrests, although charges have yet to be made public. The Delhi Police said it was investigating connections between NewsClick and anti-government activities backed by China.

The United States, whose geostrategic partnership with India has faced a series of tests of late, said it was watching the developments. “We are aware of those concerns and have seen that reporting about this outlet’s ties to the [People’s Republic of China], but we can’t comment yet on the veracity of those claims,” U.S. State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said on Tuesday.

The allegations trace back to a financial network connected to U.S. tech magnate Neville Roy Singham, who resides in Shanghai. A New York Times report in August linked the millionaire’s funds to groups including Code Pink, which was co-founded by anti-war activist Jodie Evans, who is also Singham’s wife.

The progressive groups promote pro-China views from New York to London by hosting rallies and forums, and their arguments mirror Beijing’s denial of rights abuses against its Uyghur Muslim population in Xinjiang, as well as its claim to the democratically governed island of Taiwan. Evans herself is often seen protesting in the halls of the U.S. Capitol.

The report established a working relationship between Singham and Shanghai’s propaganda department, but he denied taking orders from China’s government or its ruling Communist Party.

As early as early last year, however, an investigation by New Lines Magazine had already tied Singham’s money to Code Pink and other left-wing news and political platforms.

Singham couldn’t be reached for comment.

Indian authorities have raided NewsClick’s office in the past as part of a money-laundering case the organization said ultimately did not hold up in court. It involved roughly $10 million received by the news site’s parent company from two U.S.-based entities with reported links to Singham.

NewsClick, founded in 2009, is among the few Indian outlets that regularly criticize the policies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The fresh charges allege that Singham funded NewsClick to promote pro-China views.

The Delhi Police’s court filings said Purkayastha, the founding editor, exchanged emails with Singham and employees of his Chinese company, discussing their intent to show that Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh were not part of India. China claims the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh as part of its territory.

Authorities said the anti-terror case was initiated based on “secret inputs” that suggested there was an “intention to disrupt the sovereignty and territorial integrity of India,” according to the court documents seen by The Hindu.

NewsClick denied the accusations, saying it “does not publish any news or information at the behest of any Chinese entity or authority, directly or indirectly.”

“NewsClick does not propagate Chinese propaganda on its website,” it said in a statement on Wednesday. “NewsClick does not take directions from Neville Roy Singham regarding the content published on its website.”

“News content sharing agreements between Chinese outlets like Xinhua and Indian media are a key medium of Chinese disinformation. Such ‘news’ from Chinese outlets, particularly on sensitive topics like the border dispute and internal disturbances in India, feed into social media cycles and are amplified by bot networks on social media sites,” said Kalpit Mankikar, a China fellow at the Observer Research Foundation think tank in New Delhi.

“Such disinformation then finds traction in political discourse, which has an effect of dissipating national resolve,” Mankikar told Newsweek.

Historically, media and political narratives in India were thought to be influenced by Russian propaganda. In recent years, however, the volume of Chinese information has grown, while associated concerns were further amplified by a deadly flare-up in 2020 at the India and China’s Himalayan border.

Yet serious concerns remain about how far Modi’s government will go to insulate the Indian public while pushing up against democratic principles like free speech and freedom of the press.

The Editors Guild of India and the Press Club of India, two central bodies representing journalists in India, condemned the detention of NewsClick’s journalists, as did the Indian National Congress, the country’s main opposition party.

“Why does a government as strong & authoritarian as this one is feel threatened by a news website? And that too, one that is not even ranked very high in reach or readership?” Shashi Tharoor, the opposition leader, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

In New York City on Tuesday, protesters organized by the Party for Socialism and Liberation demonstrated outside the offices of The New York Times over what they said was the paper’s role in triggered the crackdown. NewsClick’s statement described the August article as “motivated and bogus.”

“The civil society, shaped by narratives pushed out by China-funded media, will try to create force in the parliament and in foreign policy discourse to have a more China-friendly and, in effect, an anti-Western foreign policy, even if that goes against India’s own national security concerns,” said Sriparna Pathak, an assistant professor at O.P. Jindal University in India’s Haryana state.

“NewsClick stories have tried to churn out a China-sympathetic narrative. If the evidence goes against the accused, the law will take effect,” Pathak said.

The Chinese Embassy in New Delhi didn’t respond to Newsweek‘s request for comment.