The Network of Women in Media, India (NWMI) stands in solidarity with journalist and NWMI member Nikita Jain who was among those detained at Ismailia in Egypt on June 13, while reporting for Maktoob Media on a solidarity march aimed at breaking Israel’s blockade on Gaza in the State of Palestine. When we were last able to communicate with her, she was stranded at Cairo Airport after Egyptian authorities dropped detainees there, in some cases without their passports.
The Global March to Gaza was set to run from June 13-20, with the goal of creating international pressure to open the Rafah border crossing and allow humanitarian aid to reach the besieged people of Gaza. Egyptian law enforcement stopped scores of vehicles and detained dozens of activists participating in the march and journalists covering it.
In a message to NWMI, received at 3.15 p.m. on June 14, 2025, Nikita said that she has reached out to the Indian embassy in Egypt. She added that Egyptian officials are not divulging any information about her passport, without which she obviously cannot travel. In a statement issued a few hours earlier, Maktoob Media said that Nikita “has informed us that she is safe at the moment, but the security forces are becoming increasingly hostile”.
NWMI states that the action against Nikita and other journalists reporting on the march is unwarranted and unjustified.
The detention and deportation of journalists covering the Global March to Gaza is particularly concerning given the broader context of restrictions on press freedom in Gaza. Since the start of the genocide in Palestine by the State of Israel in end-2023, the Israeli government has refused to allow independent journalists into Gaza. The job of covering the massacre has thus fallen on the shoulders of Palestinian journalists, who have bravely undertaken the heart-breaking task of reporting on the starvation and bombings of their own people, including their own families, often at the cost of their own lives.
The media landscape in Gaza is one of the most perilous in the world. In March 2025, drawing on multiple sources, Al Jazeera published the names of 230 journalists and media workers killed in the past 17 months, most of them Palestinians. Given the circumstances, considering the extreme limitations on the flow of information, this can at best be considered a conservative estimate. The Israeli government’s targeting of journalists and its refusal to allow international journalists into Gaza have been widely condemned by press freedom organisations across the globe, including NWMI, since 2023.
The detention of journalists gathered in Egypt this week to cover the scheduled march to Gaza has further extended the radius beyond which international media are not being allowed. NWMI condemns the Government of Egypt’s decision to cooperate with Israel in drawing a curtain over the latter’s ongoing crimes against humanity in Palestine.
The free flow of information is vital for the protection of human rights, especially in situations of conflict and resistance. NWMI demands the release of the journalists detained in Egypt and the return of their passports. We call on the Government of India to throw its weight behind this demand. We also call on the authorities in Egypt to ensure the safety of these journalists, and freedom from interference in their work.
