Several parliamentarians, lawyers, editors and human rights activists on Monday showed their support for the Malayalam news channel MediaOne, saying the Center’s revocation of its license for “unspecified” security concerns represents “a crackdown on freedom of the press in India”.

They also expressed ‘disappointment’ at the Kerala High Court’s ruling on the matter, saying it refused to overturn the government’s cancellation of the news channel’s license and protect the right fundamental to freedom of speech and expression.

“The decision of the Kerala HC Single Judge Bench was based on a ‘sealed cover’ envelope provided by the (Union) Ministry of Home (MHA), the contents of which have not been shared with MediaOne News,” they said. in a joint statement.

They hoped that the dual panel of the High Court, which reserved judgment on the appeal against the single panel order, would protect the channel’s fundamental right to free speech and expression and restore its license to transmission.

Digvijay Singh from Congress, Kanimozhi from DMK, Mahua Moitra from TMC, Priyanka Chaturvedi from Shiv Sena, Manoj Kumar Jha from RJD, Elamaram Kareem from CPM, Binoy Viswam from CPI, NK Premachandran from RSP, Badruddin Ajmal from AIUDF and ET Mohd IUML’s Basheer are among the parliamentarians who signed the joint agreement. statement, released at a press conference here.

The 42 eminent persons who signed the joint statement include Chairman of The Hindu newspaper N Ram, Editor of The Telegraph R Rajagopal, Editor of The Caravan magazine Vinod K Jose, Editor of MediaOne Pramod Raman, former Bombay High Court Judge BG Kolse Patil, former DGP of Uttar Pradesh KS Subramanian and famous author Tushar Gandhi.