X, formerly known as Twitter, has withheld the accounts of the United States-based human rights organizations, the Indian American Muslim Council and Hindus for Human Rights in India, in compliance with a legal demand from the Indian government.
The two non-profit organisations who have been carrying out advocacy on subjects related to minority rights and caste inequality in India, said that X offered no explanation for why this demand was made.
The Indian American Muslim Council said it had been informed by X that it had received “a legal removal demand from the Government of India… that claims the following content violates India’s Information Technology Act, 2000.”
Section 69 of the Information Technology Act allows the Union government to issue content-blocking orders to online intermediaries such as X if the content is deemed a threat to national security, sovereignty or public order.
IAMC’s Executive Director Rasheed Ahmed said on Monday that the organisation’s X account serves as an important medium for Indian-American Muslims to highlight “Hindu nationalism and worsening human rights conditions of persecuted minority groups in India.”
He went on to say: “Silencing our voice on social media is an affront not just to our organisation but to the democracy in the United States and India. X executive Elon Musk is working hand in glove with Modi’s authoritarian regime to block a US-based organization. X is accelerating the suppression of free expression and democracy in India and the US.”
“It is clear that this demand is part of a larger and ongoing crackdown by the Modi regime against dissenting voices both in and out of India,” Hindus for Human Rights said on Monday. “Though the withholding of HfHR’s Twitter account in India is deeply alarming, we will not be silenced.”
