#IStandWithZubair : Fact-checking, crime in “new” India

When much of our mainstream media either sold out or went silent, a few like Mohammed Zubair of AltNews have been painstakingly documenting hate speech made across the country, as part of an organised effort by the saffron fascists. It is not an easy job to sit through hours and hours of footage of these men and women spewing vitriol and putting out the ones that could get them into legal trouble (in a country where the judiciary is independent). Today, he has been arrested for that crime of fighting hate speech and making our public sphere slightly less poisonous. They have been gunning for zubair ever since he exposed hate speech at Haridwar and elsewhere and documented it for all the world to see...

Exposing hate speech can get you arrested in "new" India, calling a person who has been arrested on charges of hate speech a hatemonger too can get you arrested...being a hatemonger seems to be the safest way to live here. No arrest, and quick bail even if you are arrested.

Just hoping that opposition parties would hit the street on all these arrests on fake charges, right from the Bhima Koreagaon case (in which it has now been proven that incriminating documents were planted on their computers by youknowwho) to Sanjiv Bhatt, Umar Khalid, Siddique Kappan and Teesta Setalvad.

June 27