The City Public Prosecutor ML Jegan filed defamation cases against popular weekly magazine Ananda Vikatan for ‘maligning’ Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa. Her counsel filed the case against the magazine for carrying a story called ‘Manthri Thanthri’ in its November 21-27 issue which criticised Jayalalithaa and her government.

The defamation cases have also been filed against DMK chief M Karunanidhi and Murasoli S Selvam, the editor of Murasoli newspaper in the Principal Sessions Court.

However, Ananda Vikatan issued a statement from the editor, R Kannan, on Tuesday stating it will speak the ‘truth’ and not back down.

The weekly magazine has stated they have done such stories even when other political parties were in power. The series called ‘Manthri Thanthri’ has been running for 30 weeks now and this wasn’t new to the people in the state. The statement also points out that speaking out about the government’s shortcomings and those elected by the people was important to any magazine.

The trouble reportedly started when they published an article titled “What has Jayalalithaa done so far?”. According to the statement by the editor, the AIADMK mouthpiece Namadu MGR has been writing articles against the weekly since then. Their Facebook page has also been blocked he says and Facebook is yet to respond to them.

The editor also alleges that distributors, retailers of the magazine and shop-keepers have been contacted by the police and are being threatened not to sell the magazine. There is increasingly no freedom of speech in Tamil Nadu according to people, he adds.

Full statement issued by Editor R Kannan of Ananda Vikatan: