There Was No Need To Arrest Mohammed Zubair
The India Commentary view
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By Our Editorial Team
First publised on 2022-06-29 10:28:00
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The India Commentary view
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The arrest
of journalist Mohammed Zubair, co-founder of fact-checking website Alt News, is
deplorable. The fact that he was arrested for tweeting an image from a film
that had been certified for release by the censor board and had been screened
without fuss many years ago should have been enough for not initiating any
action against him. But when this is combined with the fact that Zubair tweeted
the image in 2018 and since then there has been no enmity between communities or
no riots as a result of the said tweet makes the arrest totally unwarranted.
That is why the law which says that action can be initiated against anyone for
anything if even one person complains that it hurts his or her religious
sentiments must go.
In the
instant case, Zubair was arrested just because a Twitter user going by the name 'Hanuman Bhakt' had complained that the tweet hurt his religious sentiments and
could cause enmity between communities. But has the tweet caused any
disturbance from 2018 till now? If not, then what was the need to arrest Zubair
on a single complaint? If this continues, no one will be able to tweet anything
as who knows when he or she could be hauled up for hurting someone's 'sensibilities'.
A line has to be drawn somewhere but when an administration makes up its mind
to 'punish' someone for not toeing the official line or being critical of
government policies, he or she can be harassed in innumerable ways and digging
up old tweets and getting someone to lodge a complaint against it has now
become the preferred way.
But this will
have the effect of crushing the freedom of the media, whatever little that is
left of it. The government must recognize that not all its policies will be
applauded by everyone. There always will be some criticism in the media. It has
to learn to digest the bad with the good. Going after every critic smacks of vendetta
and it does not befit the Central government of a democratic nation to do so.
