Days after reports of a fresh case being lodged against Alt News founder Mohammed Zubair in Uttar Pradesh over his social media post, international human rights organisations have issued a letter in his support, condemning the police action.
The FIR against the fact-checker was filed by the Ghaziabad police on October 8 over his X post featuring a video clip of controversial priest Yati Narsinghanand. The video, allegedly showing Narsinghanand calling for the end of Islam, was purportedly captured at an event held at Ghaziabad’s Lohiya Nagar on September 29.
The letter signed by organisations like Reporters Without Borders, International Press Institute, International Federation of Journalists, Amnesty International, Index on Censorship, PEN International, Digital Rights Foundation, Human Rights Watch, and the Committee to Protect Journalists, said, “Zubair has long been targeted by Indian authorities for his fact-checking, journalism and use of social media”.
It said that the fresh FIR against the fact-checker cites seven different legal provisions, including Section 66 of the IT Act and Section 152 of the Bharat Nayaya Sanhita, “updated and modernised version of the sedition clause”.
The letter noted that those charged under Section 152 of the BNS could face “imprisonment for life or imprisonment which may extend to seven years” and that Article 14 “counts 13,000 people charged with sedition between 2010 and 2021”, including journalists, protesters and social media users. It said the revamped law under BNS “suggests a far more expansive provision, with few safeguards in place to defend free expression”.
The statement said, “In June 2022, he was arrested by the Delhi and Uttar Pradesh state police for a tweet related to comments made by a BJP spokesperson on national TV and another satirical tweet posted in 2018.”
It added that a total of six FIRs were then lodged against Zubair, “ensnaring him in a 24-day cycle of arrest, bail and re-arrest”, before the Supreme Court granted him bail. “As a result of Zubair’s journalism and commitment to media freedom, he won the Journalism award at the 2023 Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression awards.”
Newslaundry had earlier reported that media association DIGIPUB also condemned the “sedition-like” charges against Zubair. Read here.
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