Documentary on Gauri Lankesh adjudged best human rights film
Bengaluru (PTI) "Gauri," a documentary based on late journalist-activist Gauri Lankesh, directed by her sister and award-winning director Kavitha Lankesh, has won the 'Best Human Rights' film at the Toronto Women's Film Festival 2022.
The film has been selected also for the South Asian Film festival of Montreal and is in consideration at Doc New York, International Documentary Film Festival of Amsterdam, Sundance Film Festival, and other festivals across the world.
Kavitha Lankesh, in a statement, said the documentary exposes the physical and verbal threats journalists face every day in India.
There were over 200 reported attacks on journalists in India in the last five years, out of which over 30 of them were murder in the last decade, she said. The attacks range in severity but the intention behind them matter, she said.
India's number in the global press freedom index is 150 out of 180, she further said and added that attacks on dissenters and journalists are unfortunately not new nor limited to India, but it is the intensity in which the attacks have taken place in the last decade is something to be concerned about.
Gauri Lankesh was shot dead on the night of September 5, 2017, from close range near her house in Rajarajeshwari Nagar in Bengaluru.
According to the statement, the documentary film Gauri has been commissioned by Free Press Unlimited, Amsterdam.
Free Press Unlimited mission stems from Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that says everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers, it said.
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Hezbollah leader vows not to disarm, criticises Lebanese government’s move
Beirut: Hezbollah deputy leader Naim Kassem on Friday (August 15, 2025) vowed that the Iran-backed group would not lay down its weapons, criticising the Lebanese government’s recent decision to disarm the group by the end of the year, according to a report published by The Hindu. Speaking during a televised address marking a Shiite religious event, Kassem said the move “serves Israel’s interests” and endangers the lives of “resistance fighters and their families.”
Kassem argued that the government should instead have “spread its authority and evicted Israel from Lebanon,” adding that it is “serving the Israeli project.” He warned that if the ongoing crisis escalates into internal conflict, the government would be responsible. While Hezbollah and its Shiite ally, the Amal movement, have not yet called for street protests, Kassem cautioned that if such a decision is made, demonstrators “will be all over Lebanon and head to the U.S. embassy.”
Last week, the Lebanese government approved a U.S.-backed plan to disarm Hezbollah and implement a ceasefire with Israel, a move urged by the international community following the 14-month Israel-Hezbollah war that ended in November.
Kassem insisted that Hezbollah will only discuss a national defence strategy concerning its weapons once Israel withdraws and halts near-daily airstrikes, which have killed many of its members since the war. “The resistance will not hand over its weapons as the aggression continues and occupation remains,” he said, adding that the group is prepared for a prolonged battle if necessary.
The war has weakened Hezbollah, causing significant loss of life among its leadership, displacing over 1 million people in Lebanon, and inflicting reconstruction costs estimated at $11 billion by the World Bank.
