Twitter in India has withheld accounts of journalists Murtaza Ali Shah, Rana Ayyub, and C J Werleman.
Murtaza Ali Shah, a Pakistani reporter for Geo News, told The Current, “I am not sure what really happened but I received an e-mail from Twitter yesterday informing me about the withholding of my account in India. Whenever I posted or covered a story relevant to India or Khalistan, Sikhs For Justice, or Kashmir freedom movement and shared it on Twitter, I was informed by the latter that India has reported my tweet.”
“Twitter at the time did say that there was no violation seen in tweets [relevant to India]. This happened last year. I suppose this is the reason as to why my account has been withheld in India” said Shah, who is a Kashmiri by origin and hails from Azad Kashmir.
Rana Ayyub, a Muslim-Indian Indian journalist took to her Twitter account and said, “Hello Twitter, what exactly is this?”
The notice from Twitter read, “In order to comply with Twitter’s obligations under India’s local laws, we have withheld the following account in India under the country’s Information Technology Act, 2000.”
Werleman is a journalist who writes on Islamophobia and other issues regarding the Muslim communities. His account got suspended before Ayyub.
Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemning the act tweeted, “Twitter complying with Indian government’s directive to withhold journalist @RanaAyyub’s tweet and block columnist @cjwerleman’s account in India are part of an unacceptable new trend of censorship on social media. This must stop! Journalists voices are essential for a democracy.”
The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) Wednesday took up the issue of blocking the official Twitter accounts of Pakistani embassies and other noted personalities by India.
The Foreign Office spokesperson has said that India had withheld access to the Twitter handles of Pakistan’s embassies in Iran, Turkiye, Egypt, and the Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York.
The spokesperson said that social media platforms must abide by the applicable international norms.
“We are urging Twitter to restore immediate access to our accounts and ensure adherence to democratic freedoms of speech and expression,” the spokesperson remarked.