The Editors Guild of India on Sunday condemned the arrest of journalist Prashant Kanojia and editor and head of a Noida-based television channel -- Ishita Singh and Anuj Shukla- by the Uttar Pradesh Police following a post on Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.

While Kanojia has been accused of uploading a post on Adityanath on social media, the Nation Live editor and its head have been charged with airing a video on the UP CM on the same issue, a Guild statement said.

"The police action is high-handed, arbitrary and amounts to an authoritarian misuse of laws," it said.

The Guild termed it "as an effort to intimidate the press and stifle freedom of expression".

"As with a recent case in Karnataka that the Guild spoke about, the FIR in this case is also not filed by the person allegedly affected but suo motu by the police. This is condemnable misuse of law and state power," the statement said.

"The misuse of law in this specific case, as in Karnataka earlier, goes way beyond criminal defamation as many IT Act and Indian Penal Code provisions have been invoked in what looks like a motivated and vindictive action," it said.

The Guild reiterated its demand that the "defamation law should be decriminalised".

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