By Naazish Hussain, TwoCircles.net
NEW DELHI: The suspension of Twitter accounts of Muslim activists and students by Twitter India has drawn sharp criticism and condemnation from the community.
Activists and students TwoCiricles.net spoke with raised concern over the matter.
Following the suspension of accounts, a Twitter storm was also initiated to pressurise Twitter India to restore the accounts, which the activists have termed as “discriminatory and arbitrary.”
The twitter storm going by the hashtag #RestoreMaskoorUsmani, was trending on May 3.
Many activists and students participated in the Twitter storm urging Twitter India to restore the suspended account.
Maskoor Usmani is a former Aligarh Muslim University Student Union (AMUSU) President whose Twitter handle was suspended on May 2 after he had criticized the arrest of Safoora Zargar, a research scholar from Jamia.
“They don’t arrest pregnant women even in war zones. But Delhi Police has arrested @SafooraZargar, a Jamia student who is pregnant under false charge and a draconian UAPA,” Usmani had tweeted.
Calling the suspension an attempt to curb free speech and silence critical voices, Maskoor told TwoCircles.net that “the recent developments in India specifically in the socio-political domain are an alarming state of nature.”
“The catastrophe of hate and hate-mongering against one community has taken to the helm of Indian politics. It is astounding to read the news headlines and the repercussions of taking freedom of speech into the real spirit of constitutionalism. This shall present the distorted images of large-hearted tolerance, secularism and a republic state that is India,” he said.
In another instance, Twitter suspended the account of AMU student Mohammed Farrukh Ilyas, a final year graduate student of political science.
Ilyas told TwoCircles.net that it was on May 2 that he found out that his Twitter handle had been suspended.
“On May 2 at around 8 p.m. I logged into my Twitter account. When I tried to like a ‘tweet’, suddenly pop up notification said that my account has been suspended,” Ilyas said.
Ilyas said that he mostly posts his articles and comments on law, justice and the policy of the government on his Twitter handle.
Ilyas started tweeting in 2014.
Appalled by the suspension, Ilyas said that, “There are some provisions and you have to give notice to the person if something has gone wrong,” adding, “but when you directly throttle a voice, it goes against the fundamental right to speech and freedom.”
Ilyas called his suspension the arbitrary use of power to curb freedom of speech.
To get his account back, Farrukh appealed to Twitter stating the authenticity of his identity and the history of the nature of his tweets.
Ilyas said that he has not received any response. His twitter handle remains suspended. “Where do I go now? I have appealed many times but they have not responded yet,” he said.
Ilyas terms the suspension of his account discriminatory and Islamophobic.
“They don’t want individuals from a particular community speaking about policies, law, justice, and rationalism. They don’t want them to speak on nation and development. This platform does not encourage individual from a particular community to come at the front and speak,” he says.
For the former president of AMUSU Usmani, this is “a new pattern of massacring dissenters and the voices that have questions for the government and its policies.”
Commenting on the arbitrary nature of the suspension, Usmani says,
“They did not give any prior notice and directly suspended the account. Only after the Twitter storm #RestoreMaskoorUsmani, trended on May 3, Twitter India finally sent a mail to me asking about the details of my identity, which I sent.”
“My account has not been restored yet,” he added.
Usmani received another mail from Twitter with guidelines on how to avoid trolls and abusive comments. Calling it ridiculous, Usmani says, “It is not my job to list out abusive people and block them on Twitter. Twitter should make its platform safe. I am not blocking anyone.”
A student leader from Jawahar Lal Nehru (JNU) Afreen Fatima views the suspension of Twitter handles of dissidents and Muslim voices with suspicion.
Fatima refers to a report published in Amar Ujala on 3 May 2020.
According to the report, BJP state legislative member Dr Manvendra Pratap Singh and BJP leader Dr Nishit Sharma, who is also a former student of AMU met the senior superintendent of police, Aligarh.
The reports said that Nishit Sharma complained about AMU students and ex-students’ use of social media to tarnish the image of India and targeting the Hindu employees in Arab countries. He asked the SP to take strict actions against it and to investigate the connections with Pakistan’s secret agencies and terror organizations. Manvendra had said that many suspicious Twitter handles relating to Pakistani intelligence agency ISI have been suspended by Twitter. The Superintendent of Police had assured that complaint is being investigated.
“Any account posting such false claims would be suspended or blocked and strict action would be taken against users,” the news report quoted the police as saying.
Fatima says it is very upsetting that “we can’t even speak out for what we feel bad about.”
“Speaking against one government is not speaking against India. The government is not India,” she says.
Fatima had earlier taken to Twitter to condemn Twitter India for suspension of accounts of Muslim scholars and activists.
“Because of the lockdown, people are not able to extend physical solidarities. The only solidarity we are extending right now is through online means like Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Through this we are making people aware of what is happening,” she said.