In a statement issued yesterday, The Kashmir Walla describes the move as an instance of “opaque censorship” and yet another severe blow to the freedom of the press in Jammu and Kashmir.

The magazine’s staff were notified by their service provider that the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology had blocked access to the website within India, invoking the Information Technology Act of 2000.  Their Facebook page, boasting nearly half a million followers, was taken down, and access to their Twitter account was “restricted”, citing what was described as a “legal demand.” As per the statement issued by the Kashmir Walla, all this was done while the staff were in the process of vacating their office space in Srinagar, having been served an eviction notice by the property owner.

NWMI has, in its statement, pointed out that this blocking and censorship of the magazine’s website comes at a time when Fahad Shah, the founder-editor-in-chief of The Kashmir Walla, has been incarcerated for 18 months. Shah is currently contesting various charges levelled against him, including the alleged promotion of terrorism, dissemination of false information, and incitement to violence. He has faced imprisonment on five separate occasions within four months, with three instances involving First Information Reports under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and one involving the application of the Public Safety Act.

A trainee reporter with the magazine, Sajad Gul, is also detained under the draconian Public Safety Act (PSA) and is currently lodged in a prison in Uttar Pradesh. Gul was arrested on January 6, 2022, after he shared a video in which a family expressed allegedly “anti-India” sentiments following the death of their family member in an exchange of fire with security forces in Srinagar.

The staff of The Kashmir Walla say that they are still in the process of comprehending the implications of this latest development. Their statement is an eloquent comment on the plight of independent media in Kashmir: “There isn’t a lot left for us to say anymore. Since 2011, The Kashmir Walla has strived to remain an independent, credible, and courageous voice of the region in the face of unimaginable pressure from the authorities while we watched ourselves being ripped apart, bit by bit.”

The deliberate targeting of The Kashmir Walla, through the arrest of its editors and contributors and now the blocking of its website and social media accounts, indicates the extent to which the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Union government can go to muzzle the press in Kashmir.

By blocking this crucial news magazine, the government seeks to silence a critical voice and denies readers in India access to its rich repository of stories showcasing everyday life in conflict-ridden Kashmir. Regrettably, the authorities appear to have prevailed upon house-owners to terminate the magazine’s office lease.  An independent media requires a support system to flourish, and intimidation by the authorities contributes to eroding this support structure of essential services.

NWMI has also demanded that authorities desist from exerting pressure on ordinary citizens such as house owners, to prevent them renting space to The Kashmir Walla.

Further, NWMI has also demanded that the authorities stop this backdoor censorship of independent media. The Kashmir Walla must be allowed to be published freely on the internet, and access to its website and its social media platforms must be restored.

Related:

Fahad Shah PSA case quashed, charges “mere surmise” says High Court

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Why has the NIA arrested Kashmiri journalist Irfan Mehraj in a ‘terror funding’ case?
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The post Blocking of Kashmir Walla condemned: NWMI appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Slain journalist Gauri Lankesh continues to strike so much fear in the hearts of right-wing extremists, even from beyond the grave, that they now appear to have used their influence to have a website launched a year after her death blocked from sharing content on Facebook!

NaanuGauri.com , a Kannada news website, has allegedly been blocked from Facebook. An official statement released by the team that brings out the digital publication says, “Facebook has blocked Gaurilankesh media’s Kannada website completely.” It appears the website’s links shared on Facebook were mass reported and thus flagged by the platform for having allegedly violated community standards.

The statement says, “This is a dark day. We tried our best to communicate to FB that naanugauri(dot)com is a reputed and respected news website. Its not just adhering to FB community standards, we try to follow Journalistic ethics to our best possible effort and we publish content which is always verified and checked.”

They further say, “From yesterday Facebook is not allowing us to share any of our links and they have hidden all the links shared previously. They have failed to give any specific reason for the same, except throwing a message like ‘You have violated our community standards’, which is far from being true.”

 NaanuGauri.com is a widely read Kanada news website and many activists, scholars and journalists of repute have regularly contributed to it. Some of them are; H S Doreswamy, Devanuru Mahadeva, Yogendra Yadav, Prashant Bhushan, A Narayana and Amit Basule.

The team says, “If they (FB) can specify any valid and specific reasons of violating community standards we are indeed ready to correct as well,” adding “With growing polarisation across the country some sections of people associated with far right wing politics having malicious intent might have deliberately campaigned against us and they might have reported our links to FB.”

The statement further says that they expect “Facebook should have some basic system in place to verify such false and untrustworthy campaigns against only few trustworthy media houses remaining in this country, (naanugauri being one of them).”

Gauri Lankesh was gunned down by members of a right-wing extremist organisation on September 5, 2018. Investigations into her assassination also helped uncover a terror plot by members of the same extremist organisation and other associated groups.

Related:

Gunman in Kalburgi murder case also Gauri Lankesh murder accused?
Ravish Kumar wins the inaugural Gauri Lankesh Memorial Award for Journalism

The post Gauri Lankesh’s Kannada news website banned by Facebook? appeared first on SabrangIndia.

In separate statements, three environmental advocacy groups; Let India Breathe (LIB), FridaysForFuture (FFF) and There Is No Earth B, said that their websites had allegedly been blocked by the National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI).

Let India Breathe Statement on #InternetCensorship

Today, we are reaching out to our community and large, diverse base of volunteers to inform them about an unprecedented act of internet censorship. (1/11)#InternetFreedom #DigitalLockdown pic.twitter.com/eCdQyoWtXz

— Let India Breathe (@LetIndBreathe) July 13, 2020

IMPORTANT!
Do read and share #FridaysForFuture#India @internetfreedom pic.twitter.com/EiI8q3jvoC

— Fridays For Future India ??? (@FFFIndia) July 13, 2020

TW: #censorship
On 10th July 2020, our website https://t.co/Yr7TnZVoFz was blocked by certain ISPs, likely under DoT directions. It contained ALL our handy toolkits that have been widely used & circulated by you all.
Here’s what we know, AKA our official statement: #Thread pic.twitter.com/eq5WnG9FsX

— ThereIsNoEarthB (@ThereIsNoEarthB) July 13, 2020

The three websites have been actively campaigning against the draft Environmental Assessment Impact (EIA) 2020 which has come under fire from environmental and civil rights groups for weakening environmental regulations by giving post facto clearance and doing away with important processes like public consultations.

Not only this, these websites are mostly run by youth activists who work around the clock to create awareness of any and all environmental violations, subversion of laws protecting indigenous people and their habitats and steps to foster positive climate change. Whether it is the violation taking place at the Aarey Forest in Mumbai, the Dehing Patkai Sanctuary in Assam or coal mining being opened up for private players, the websites have actively campaigned against rising ecological breaches that have only increased during the Covid-19 lockdown.

No reasons given

Let India Breathe in its statement said that it has served as a public resource of information and engagement to serve the constitutional goals for protection of wildlife and ecology and that their website domain www.letindiabreathe.in had been rendered inaccessible on June 29 for reasons not disclosed to them.

Fridays For Future, India which is the Indian arm of the global climate movement started by Swedish youth activist Greta Thunberg issued a statement saying that the movement has 60 chapters across India with around 10,000 volunteers and had recently initiated a feedback process for the draft EIA but access to the website, www.fridaysforfuture.in had been restricted since July 10 and they too have not been informed for the reasons regarding the same.

There Is No Earth B which addresses itself as an open community of environmentally passionate people intent and being backed by Gandhian philosophy of inspiring change in a statement said that it set to work translating and disseminating information about the controversial draft EIA 2020 so that people could understand how they would be affected by those changes. However, they too, on July 10 found that their website www.thereisnoearthb.com had been rendered inaccessible on the networks of some Internet Service Providers (ISPs) “as per the DoT (Department of Telecommunications) compliance”.

Violation of fundamental rights

Citing censorship of freedom of expression, many have opposed and questioned the blocking of these websites by NIXI.

C’mon @PrakashJavdekar why are you afraid of citizens expressing their views on the draft EIA notification on the internet?

‘He’ may well have his way, but why prohibit people from having their say? https://t.co/nRMDEddjSr

— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) July 15, 2020

Unbelievable how low this BJP Government can go!

They have now blocked the Environmental websites which were raising their voice against #EIA to help people to send their suggestions against the draft.@uncclearn @Survival @landislife @pmchaudhary13 @PMOIndia @abhayminz pic.twitter.com/YkEXIE4qN2

— Raj Vasava (Indigenous) (@RajeshVasava82) July 16, 2020

On behalf of Let India Breathe, the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) issued a notice for illegal domain seizure to NIXI saying, “We submit that such actions are violative of the existing ICANN and .IN registry guidelines as well as the fundamental rights of the collective who operate and the public participants who exercise their fundamental rights. It is specifically asserted that no specific notice, hearing or opportunity for defence has been provided till date. There is no information of any legal order. Such actions smack of arbitrariness, secrecy and are prima facie illegal especially given that contact details and email addresses for the website are prominently displayed on the homepage.”

Over the past few days the websites of environmental campaigners @LetIndBreathe @FFFIndia and @ThereIsNoEarthB have been blocked and taken down. We are providing them help and assistance. #WhatTheBlock 1/6 https://t.co/uoEVYdhqwS

— Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) (@internetfreedom) July 13, 2020

The Hindustan Times reported Apar Gupta, Executive Director, IFF as saying, “We are seeing a spike in cases of internet censorship during the Covid-19 pandemic when the internet is one of the few mediums to engage and interact. Such blocking of websites is a violation of fundamental right to speech and expression and directive principle of the state policy on protection of environment.”  

Strategic digital lockdown

The Quint had earlier revealed how Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar had cut short the time for public commentary on the draft EIA 2020 by overruling his own ministry’s senior officials. While the officials had suggested August 10, 2020 to be the last date for feedback, Javadekar had allegedly curtailed the feedback time by 40 days and fixed June 30 as the last date for receiving feedback. This too was an extension from the earlier closure date of May 22 and came only after environmentalists and Opposition leaders like former environment minister Jairam Ramesh criticized the government for keeping such a short deadline for the same.

However, the Delhi High Court had overruled this and extended the time for receiving suggestions till August 11, 2020 and questioned why the Centre had not come clear about overturning the original timeline set for August 10 and instead extending the feedback time for June 30.

The digital clampdown by the Centre through NIXI, seems an effort to block any criticism of the draft EIA 2020 and thereby keep people in the dark about its adverse effects on the ecology and lives of people in the country.

What government officials say

The NIXi which describes itself as a not-for-profit organization managed and operated on a neutral basis. However, it comes under the purview of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.

With regards to the blocking of the three above mentioned websites, Shubham Saran, General Manager NIXI told Hindustan Times, “We don’t take any action on our part unless a law enforcement agency asks us to do so. I haven’t looked at the details of these cases but it should be because some law enforcement agency has directed us.”

Sanjay Dhotre, Minister of State for Communications, which oversees the DoT, told The Print that while he was not aware of this particular incident, there was a committee handled by the Ministry of Home Affairs which received complaints across states from chief secretaries regarding objectionable content in websites.

However, one glance at the websites that were blocked will show that there was no objectionable content in them. All that the websites did was simplify hard to understand environmental jargon to help people better understand the severe violations that would take place if the draft EIA were to be enforced.

Hasty environmental clearances have already taken place all through the lockdown with the government giving clearances through video conferencing without conducting site visits or allowing people time to send evidence of such violations that would take place. Now, the strategic digital censorship of these websites only goes to show that the Centre is coming in to block dissent from all quarters.

Related:

Publish Draft EIA in 22 Indian Languages, Delhi HC to Modi Sarkar
Draft environmental impact notification (EIA) doom for natural resources, forests, withdraw it: NAPM

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