NEW DELHI: The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the nationwide block on access to The Wire independent news site as the latest act of media censorship.
“Facts must not be the casualty in any conflict,” said Beh Lih Yi, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator. “Blocking The Wire’s website and the social media accounts of other news outlets is an alarming attempt to stifle critical journalism at a time when independent reporting is more essential than ever. We call on the Indian government to immediately lift the blockade on The Wire and cease using national security concerns as an excuse to suppress media freedom.”
The internet block coincides with a significant escalation in tensions between India and Pakistan, which have traded fire across their frontier in disputed Kashmir this week.
The Wire criticized the blocking as “arbitrary and inexplicable” and a violation of the constitutional guarantee of press freedom. Internet Service Providers told The Wire that they had received orders to block the site under a government directive issued under the Information Technology Act, 2000.
The social media platform X said it had received executive orders to block over 8,000 accounts in India, including the Kashmir-based news outlets Free Press Kashmir and The Kashmiriyat and Maktoob Media, which focuses on human rights and minorities.
Separately, on May 7, The Hindu newspaper said it had deleted a post on X, which reported that three Indian jets had crashed in Jammu and Kashmir, because it did not have “on-record official information.”
Journalist Hilal Mir has been placed under preventive detention until May 13 for allegedly spreading anti-national content and promoting secessionist ideology online. In late April, the government blocked one Indian and 19 Pakistani YouTube channels, one journalist was assaulted and two political commentators and satirists face legal action over their coverage of the Kashmir attack. The information ministry has banned live coverage of anti-terrorist operations, citing security risks.
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