PUCL condemns the unremitting persecution of well known fact-checker Mohammad Zubair
Tags: Mohammed Zubair
Related Issue: Right to freedom of speech and expression, Press Freedom
Demands that the malicious and arbitrary prosecution be withdrawn
The PUCL condemns the unremitting persecution of well known fact -checker Mohammad Zubair and his organisation, Atlnews. The latest FIR filed against him for merely tweeting and sharing publicly available videos of Yati Narsinghanand flies in the face of both law and justice.
The sharing or rather resharing of publicly available videos of Yati Narsinghanand has resulted in an FIR which invokes Sections 196 (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion), 228 (fabricating false evidence), 299 (deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings), 356(3) (defamation) and 351(2) (punishment for criminal intimidation) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS). The police have also invoked Section 152 of the BNS which aims to punish speech which incites secession, armed rebellion or encourages feelings of separatist activity.’
Zubair has rightly noted his tweets did not call for violence against the religious leader and that he just alerted the police authorities about Mr. Narsinghanand’s actions and sought action as per law. This could not be understood as ‘promoting disharmony’ or ‘ill-will’ between two classes of people. He also challenged the invocation of defamation law against him as his action of merely sharing the videos of Yati Narsinghanand which were anyway in the public domain could not amount to defamation.
The invoking of Section 152 of the BNS to characterize Zubair’s tweets as ‘separatist’ activity hits at the heart of a democracy which is founded on the exercise of the freedom of speech and expression. The PUCL is committed to challenging this provision which has for the first time been invoked in a high profile matter. This provision has serious implications for the future of media freedom and the freedom of speech and expression in India and should not be on the statute books.
The legal process is underway and the UP police have been restrained from any further coercive action such as arrest till the next date of hearing on January 6, 2025. The PUCL is hopeful that the Allahabad High Court will deliver justice in accordance with an interpretation of the constitutional protection for freedom of speech and expression. As the Supreme Court noted in a 2022 case when Zubair was arrested for his tweets:
Merely because the complaints filed against the petitioner arise from posts that were made by him on a social media platform, a blanket anticipatory order preventing him from tweeting cannot be made. A blanket order directing the petitioner to not express his opinion – an opinion that he is rightfully entitled to hold as an active participating citizen – would be disproportionate to the purpose of imposing conditions on bail. The imposition of such a condition would tantamount to a gag order against the petitioner. Gag orders have a chilling effect on the freedom of speech.
PUCL demands that the UP police withdraw the baseless prosecution and conduct themselves in accordance with the constitutional mandate to respect the freedom of speech and expression. PUCL also demands that Section 152 of the BNS be repealed as it is fundamentally incompatible with the ethos of a democracy. Dissent is indeed the lifeblood of a democracy and the continued persecution of Mohammad Zubair and the Altnews further attenuates our claim to being the world’s largest democracy.