Govt orders social media block
SRINAGAR: India has ordered internet service providers in Indian-controlled Kashmir to immediately block Facebook, Twitter and 20 other social media sites and online applications for one month, after several videos and photos depicting alleged abuses of Kashmiris by Indian security forces sparked outrage and fuelled protests.
The government said the restrictions ordered on Wednesday were made “in the interest of maintenance of public order”. But Pranesh Prakash, policy director for the Indian advocacy group the Centre for Internet and Society, called it a “blow to freedom of speech” and “legally unprecedented in India”.
“It not only violates the Indian constitution but also violates international law,” he said.
Most of the applications the government ordered blocked were still working yesterday. However, 3G and 4G mobile connections in the Kashmir Valley have not worked for more than a week now. Broadband and 2G connections have not been affected.
An official with Kashmir’s state-owned telecom company said yesterday it had so far been unable to shut down 22 social media sites. The official at telecom Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd said engineers were working on blocking the sites, but so far have been unsuccessful without freezing the internet across the region. The official spoke on condition of anonymity, because he was not authorised to give technical details of the effort to the media.
The government has often halted internet service in the region in the past in an attempt to prevent anti-India demonstrations from being organised. But this is the first time authorities have shut down social media following the circulation of videos of alleged abuse by Indian soldiers.
Several recent clips, captured in the days surrounding a violence-plagued local election April 9, have proven to be especially powerful and have helped to intensify antiIndia protests.
One video shows a stone-throwing teenage boy being shot by a soldier from a few metres away. Another shows soldiers making a group of young men, held inside an armoured vehicle, shout profanities against Pakistan while a soldier kicks and slaps them with a stick. The video pans to a young boy’s bleeding face as he cries. Yet another clip shows three soldiers holding a teenage boy down with their boots and beating him on his back.
The video that drew the most outrage was of young shawl weaver Farooq Ahmed Dar tied to the hood of an army jeep as it patrolled villages on voting day. A soldier can be heard saying in Hindi over a loudspeaker, “Stone throwers will meet a similar fate”, as residents look on aghast.
“When they were driving me around, they were saying, ‘We will shoot you’, and were throwing stones at my head,” Mr Dar said. “I was told not to talk. In one of the villages, an elderly man begged for my release but they didn’t listen to him.”
Police have since registered a criminal case against unnamed Indian soldiers in that case, for the first time citing a video as evidence. In addition, an army “internal inquiry has been initiated into the jeep video”, according to spokesman Col Rajesh Kalia.
But India’s top law officer, Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi, lauded soldiers for managing to defuse a “nasty situation” by containing the protests and saving the polls.
“Why so much noise?” he asked about the complaints. “Military operations cannot be subject of such discussions on social media,” Mr Rohtagi told the Hindustan Times newspaper.
Students across Kashmir have been rallying this month at anti-India demonstrations, facing off against heavily armed riot police and paramilitary soldiers.
“Most students like me use social media, and some among us use stones to protest against India. Our brothers [militants] use guns for the same purpose,” said Aslam, a 22-year-old science major at the University of Kashmir who gave only his first name out of fear for police reprisals.
Viral videos showing police officers beating civilians or soldiers forcing children to do push-ups in public have “not only outraged the residents here, but also strengthened their belief that the remedy lies in relentlessly seeking justice to end these foul practices”, said Khurram Parvez of the Jammu-Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society.