Editors’ Guild calls for Zubair’s release, invokes PM’s commitment at G7

On Tuesday, the Editors Guild of India termed the arrest of fact-check site Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair “extremely disturbing” and called for his immediate release. In a statement, the EGI condemned Zubair’s arrest as “brazen” while it pointed to the commitments made by PM Narendra Modi in the G7 meeting to protect free speech.

“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 Editor’s Guild said.

The Delhi Police arrested fact-checker Zubair on Monday over a 2018 tweet. He was charged with promoting enmity between different groups on the grounds of religion and deliberate acts to outrage religious feelings.

The police, in its FIR, said that Zubair’s tweet was “highly provocative and more than sufficient to incite feelings of hatred” among people, media reports quoted.

In the tweet, Zubair shared a clip from Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s 1983 classic Kissi Se Na Kehna.

Demanding his release, EGI said, “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 Editors Guild of India condemns the arrest of Muhammad Zubair, co-founder of the fact checking site AltNews, by the Delhi Police on June 27, for a tweet from 2018. EGI demands that the Delhi Police should immediately release Muhammad Zubair. pic.twitter.com/q9uYqFxaPA

— Editors Guild of India (@IndEditorsGuild) June 28, 2022

The arrest has received widespread criticism from Opposition leaders and parties, including Mahua Moitra and Rahul Gandhi.

Earlier in the day, DIGIPUB, a body of digital news media organisations, condemned Zubair’s arrest, asking the police to withdraw the case against the Alt News co-founder 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,” the organisation said in a statement.

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