Editors Guild of India demands immediate release of AltNews cofounder Muhammad Zubair

New Delhi, India News Stream:  The Editors Guild of India (EGI) has strongly condemned the arrest of AltNews Co-Founder Muhammad Zubair  for allegedly hurting religious sentiments.

In a statement EGI said that the Delhi police should immediately release Muhammad Zubair. This is necessary to buttress the commitment made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in G7 meet in Germany to ensure a resilient democracy by protecting online and offline content.

The statement further said that Zubair has been arrested under section 153 and 295 of Indian Penal Code . This is extremely disturbing because Zubair and his website AltNews have done some exemplary work ….in identifying fake news and countering disinformation campaign, in a very objective and factual manner.

In fact it was a exposure of toxic remarks of a ruling party spokeperson on a TV channel that allowed the party to make amends.

It is apparent that AltNews alert vigilance was resented by those who use disinformation as  a tool to polarize the society and rake nationalist sentiments, statement said.

A cyber unit of Delhi Police on Monday arrested Mohammed Zubair, the co-founder of fact-checking website AltNews, on charges of allegedly hurting religious sentiments following a complaint by a social media user who referred to a tweet from 2018.

The police said they filed an FIR against Zubair in connection with the complaint under IPC sections 153-A (promoting enmity between different groups) and 295-A (malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings). They said he has been remanded in police custody for a day and will be produced in court for bail hearing after Tuesday.

Police sources said the complainant in the case goes by the Twitter name Hanuman Bhakt, with an image of Lord Hanuman as his profile photo. On Monday night, the handle had over 400 followers.

(Indianewstream)