'YOUTHS aligned to the ABVP and an independent students’ organisation called Chhatra Sangharsh Samiti on Tuesday vandalised property and created commotion at a private institute in Udaipur to register their protest against a student from Kashmir who had allegedly shared a post on Facebook praising slain Hizbul Mujahideen militant Burhan Wani. Mudasir Rashid, a third-year student of civil engineering, has since been suspended and booked under sedition...'
'...Since January 2016, there have been at least 18 cases of sedition lodged against various citizens, from students and politicians to anti-liquor activists, leaders and activists of reservation movements, Kashmiri activists and even the principal of a school who got a map of India wrong! Apart from Bhat, two other sedition cases were filed over social media posts, on Whatsapp and Facebook. In January, Anwar Sadiq was arrested in Mallappuram, Kerala for allegedly making insulting comments on Facebook about Lt. Col. Niranjan E.
'In their home in Sopore, the parents of 25-year old Tawseef Ahmad Bhat helplessly seek their son’s release. Tawseef was arrested by police in India and charged with sedition for speaking against Indian rule in Kashmir and endorsing Kashmir’s independence on his Facebook account. “Our son is just 25. Simply because he shared a post on social media the police has arrested him and kept him in confinement! We cannot understand why a grave charge of sedition has been slapped on him,” Inam-ul-Bhat, Tawseef’s brother told Kashmir Reader...'
'CHHATTISGARH Police on Thursday arrested a Kashmiri man and booked him on charges of sedition for commenting on, forwarding and “liking” several “anti-India” posts on a social networking site. Police said that Taufiq Ahmed, who had studied in Bhilai and now worked in the city, was arrested from a train at Sagar railway station in Madhya Pradesh and sent to judicial custody. They added that an FIR in the case had been registered based on a complaint from Ratan Yadav, the Bhilai coordinator of Bajrang Dal...'
'Police have arrested and charged with sedition a man from Kerala for allegedly making insulting comments on Facebook about Lt Col Niranjan E Kumar who was killed while defusing a bomb during a counter-terror operation at Punjab’s Pathankot air force base. Anwar Sadiq, 24, was arrested from his home in Malappuram town after the social media post sparked widespread outrage with many demanding immediate action and some prescribing “capital punishment”...'
'V.P. Rajeena, a journalist based in Kozhikode, has become the target of organised online abuse, after she shared her personal experiences of studying in a madrasa in her younger days. Facebook closed down her profile on Wednesday after mass reporting by her detractors. On Sunday, Rajeena put up a post in the social network on alleged instances of immoral conduct of madrasa instructors, which she claimed to have witnessed. The post touched a raw nerve and set off a torrent of abuses and open threats on her Facebook page and in her message box.
'The Indian government sought the maximum number of content restrictions from the various platforms of social networking behemoth Facebook in the first six months of this year than any other country globally. The world's biggest social networking platform said it granted requests from authorities in India for some 15,155 pieces of content to be blocked on its platform, its WhatsApp and Messenger apps and its photo-sharing app, Instagram. This was revealed by Facebook in its latest report on government data requests for the period between January and June this year...
'Armchair activism isn't a bad word any more. In fact, there's nothing beyond its scope if people decide to sit on a chair and raise their virtual voice. The recent instances of hate against Pakistan and the Shiv Sena-imposed extra-egal ban on artistes, writers and sportspersons from across the border has triggered a spontaneous online campaign that has spurred support beyond boundaries and could hold a lesson for politicians.
'When Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg holds his Townhall Q&A in New Delhi on October 28, there is one question I would like him to answer: Will he, please, scrap Facebook’s ‘real names’ policy? As it happens, I can personally vouch for its discriminatory nature, not to mention its breathtaking stupidity. Three weeks ago, Facebook locked me out of my account. Apparently, someone had reported my name as fake. Unless I submitted documentation which proved that I was me, and that my name was my real name, I could not access my account, ever.
'A woman film-maker from Bengaluru has been threatened with rape and acid attack by fundamentalists on her Facebook page for endorsing beef consumption and questioning Hindu practices. Chetana Thirthahalli, a scriptwriter and associate director of Kannada movies, has lodged a complaint with the Bengaluru Police to seek action against those who issued threats to her on social media...'
