American millionaire Neville Roy Singham, named as an accused in the NewsClick case, has rejected the allegations by New York Times that he is running a funding network affiliated to spread China’s propaganda around the world through NewsClick.
In a four-page rebuttal, Singham called the New York Times article “misleading”, and described it as an “innuendo-laden hit piece”. Based on the August 5 NYT article, the Delhi Police’s special cell named him as an accused in the case, in which the editor and an employee of NewsClick were arrested. Close to 100 persons, including journalists and activists, were also raided.
Calling the NYT piece “a great disservice to the cause of press freedom”, Singham said, “The NYT intentionally chose not to publish all the factual rebuttals that I provided to them on July 22, 2023, prior to their publication date. The NYT has done a great disservice to the cause of press freedom. For this reason, I have decided to publicly address some of these points that I raised, and were ignored by, the NYT. I categorically deny and repudiate all claims of illegality and impropriety and wish to set the record straight,” Singham said in his rebuttal.
On the allegations linking him to the Chinese government, he said, “I do not work for, nor take instruction from, nor receive funding from the Propaganda Department or any division of the Chinese government or the Communist Party of China, as the FIR claims and is suggested in the NYT article. In fact, I do not take orders from any government or political party in the world.”
He denied the allegation that his open-source map project sought to undermine India’s territorial integrity. “In 2020, I was presented with an opportunity to sponsor a free and open-source software project that would allow anyone to create their own equal-area projection maps. While there are hundreds of ongoing international border disputes, including for example, between Canada and the United States, the goal was always to allow citizens of each country to produce maps that are consistent with their own laws and reflect their sovereign countries’ national interests,” he said.
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Singham said he chose to publicly address the allegations against him, as NYT chose to “ignore” some of the points he had made. “I categorically deny and repudiate all claims of illegality and impropriety and wish to set the record straight,” he said.
