Fact-checking website Alt News on Saturday said that it’s co-founder and journalist Mohammed Zubair was being persecuted for fighting “the rot in the system”. Alt News added, “And that makes this our collective fight.”
“Our friend and colleague Mohammed Zubair, who is also the co-founder of Alt News, continues to be hounded as the establishment is embroiling him in one case after another,” read the statement. “However, the organisation stands firmly behind Zubair and will support his fight in every way,” it said.
Zubair, one of the vocal critic of Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government was arrested by the Delhi Police on 27 June for his tweets. The city police accused Zubair of hurting religious sentiments through the tweet that he had posted in March 2018. Subsequently, the police also charged Zubair with criminal conspiracy, causing the disappearance of evidence and violating foreign funding norms.
On June 1, the Uttar Pradesh Police booked Zubair for calling three Hindutva hate-mongers as “hate-mongers” in a tweet. The FIR was registered under Section 295A (deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings) of the Indian Penal Code as well as Section 67 (publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form) of the Information Technology Act. All three of hate-mothers – Yati Narasinghanand Saraswati, Bajrang Muni and Anand Swaroop – have been booked in hate speech cases in the past few months for making anti-Muslim statements.
Soon after the interim bail verdict by Supreme Court in UP FIR, a court in Uttar Pradesh’s Lakhimpur Kheri issued a warrant summoning Zubair before it on 11 July.
