The Editors Guild of India on Tuesday condemned the arrest of AltNews co-founder Mohammed Zubair on charges of hurting religious sentiments. Terming it 'extremely disturbing', the Guild demanded his immediate release. "It is apparent that AltNews' alert vigilance was resented by those who use disinformation as a tool to polarise society and rake nationalist sentiments," the Guild said in a statement.
The fact-checking website's co-founder was arrested by the Special Cell of the Delhi Police on Monday on charges of promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion and deliberate acts to outrage religious feeling of the Indian Penal Code.
"This is extremely disturbing because Zubair and his website AltNews have done some exemplary work over the past few years in identifying fake news and countering disinformation campaigns, in a very objective and factual manner," the Guild said.
The letter further stated: "This is necessary to buttress the commitments made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the G7 meet in Germany to ensure a resilient democracy by protecting online and offline content." India, along with G7 countries, on Monday signed the ‘2022 Resilient Democracies Statement’ in which they committed to “guarding the freedom, independence and diversity of civil society actors” and “protecting the freedom of expression and opinion online and offline”.
Opposition leaders and journalists are also critcising Zubair's arrest. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said "every person exposing BJP’s hate, bigotry and lies is a threat to them".
AIMIM leader and MP Asaduddin Owaisi said Zubair’s arrest was a "total violaton of due process". He tweeted: “He’s been arrested with no notice and in some unknown FIR. Total violation of due process. Delhi Police does nothing about anti-Muslim genocidal slogans but acts swiftly against “crime” of reporting hate speech and countering misinformation."
In a strongly-worded tweet Trinamool Congress MP Derek O’Brien slammed Narendra Modi and Amit Shah. He tweeted: “Strongly condemn the arrest of one of the world’s finest journalists @zoo_bear who exposes the BJP’s #FakeNews factory every single day. PM @narendramodi and @AmitShah for all the power you wield, you are essentially COWARDS.”
“Shocked to hear that Zubair has been taken into custody by the Delhi Police. Checking fact from fiction was probably his biggest crime?” Shiv Sena MP Priyanka Chaturvedi posted.
