NEW DELHI, 29 June. - (ANA) - At the same time human rights experts are warning that 200 million Muslims are being pushed to the brink of genocide by the Indian Government’s discriminatory policies, Twitter appears to be making itself complicit in this looming human rights catastrophe, reports Byline Times. 

 

The social media giant has banned accounts critical of the Government at its request, particularly those that report anti-Muslim hate crimes. This includes my own account. Others include, Washington Post columnist Rana Ayyub, London-based Kashmiri human rights activist Muzzammil Ayyub Thakur, and prominent Indian journalist Mohammed Zubair. 

 

On 19 June, I received an email from Twitter saying that it had received a request from the Indian Government, claiming that six of my 70,000 tweets had violated India’s Information Technology Act of 2000. Three days later, I received another email, saying that my account was now being withheld in India, meaning that Indian residents are unable to view any of my past or future posts. 

 

The offending tweets? One linked to an article, saying how “frightening Modi’s India is becoming for 200 million Indian and Kashmiri Muslims”. Another included a video of a Muslim man being beaten and called a “terrorist” while he gave an interview to a local television news reporter. 

 

The third condemned the Indian Government for releasing from prison early one of the main culprits responsible for the killing of 2,000 Muslims during the 2002 Gujarat Riots. Another warned that a large-scale Muslim genocide “would make Rwanda, Bosnia and even the Holocaust pale in comparison”. 

 

Two days later, Hindu IT Cell, an affiliate of BJP IT Cell – an online propaganda outfit employed by India’s ruling party – boasted: “Finally, after a lot of mass emailing and mass cyber complaints, @cjwerleman’s account has been withheld in India.” 

 

In other words, Twitter, a US-based company, is withholding the account of a US-based journalist because of a campaign waged by the same India-based groups and individuals that human rights experts hold responsible for the year-on-year surge in anti-Muslim violence. This should send a chill down the spine of every journalist and activist.   - (ANA) -

 

AB/ANA/29 June 2022 — - -