The Editors’ Guild of India on Tuesday termed as “extremely disturbing” the arrest of AltNews co-founder Muhammad Zubair on charges of hurting religious sentiments, and 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 Delhi Police on Monday on charges of promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion and deliberate acts to outrage religious feeling.
“Zubair has been arrested under sections 153 and 295 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.
It demanded that the Delhi Police should immediately release Zubair.
“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,” the Guild statement said.
Earlier, a body of digital news media organisations had condemned Zubair’s arrest and asked the Delhi Police to withdraw the case against him immediately.
“In a democracy, where every individual possesses the right to exercise the freedom of speech and expression, it is unjustifiable that such stringent laws are being used as tools against journalists, who have been accorded the role of playing watchdog against the misuse of institutions of the state,” a DIGIPUB statement said.
“DIGIPUB urges the Delhi Police to withdraw the case immediately. The use of such stringent laws as tools against journalists who are considered the fourth pillar of democracy must be stopped. We stand with Zubair,” the statement said.
On Monday, Zubair was produced at the Duty Magistrate’s residence in Delhi’s Burari. He was then sent to one-day police custody. He was arrested by the IFSO (Intelligence Fusion & Strategic Operations) unit of Delhi Police after a Twitter handle alerted the police about tweets that were detrimental to communal harmony.
Alt News co-founder Pratik Sinha said Zubair was called to Delhi for questioning in a different case from 2020, in which the court has given him protection against arrest. But he was arrested in this new case instead without mandatory notice, Sinha said.
However, police have acknowledged that Zubair was originally being questioned in an older case but was arrested in the new case after having sufficient evidence on record. As per reports, the older case against Zubair from 2020 was filed for the alleged harassment of a girl on Twitter.