YouTube blocks access to CBC Fifth Estate story on killing of B.C. Sikh activist at India's demand
David McIntosh/CBC
"Indian law obligates X to withhold access to this content in India; however, the content remains available elsewhere," X said in an email to The Fifth Estate.
"We disagree with this action and maintain that freedom of expression should extend to these posts. Following the Indian legal process, we are in current communication with the Indian authorities."
In emails from YouTube and X to CBC, the platforms said the Indian government was citing the country's Information Technology Act 2000 in making the orders.
According to one section of that act, the government has the power to "intercept, monitor or decrypt any information generated, transmitted, received or stored in any computer resource." Such action can be taken, according to the act, in the interest of:
The sovereignty or integrity of India, defence of India, the security of the state.
Friendly relations with foreign states.
Public order, or for preventing incitement to the commission of any cognizable offence relating to these.
Investigating any offence.
Video shows Nijjar leaving parking lot
The Fifth Estate story that aired last week included video that showed Nijjar, the president of the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara, leaving the parking lot of his place of worship in Surrey on the evening of June 18, 2023, in his grey Dodge Ram pickup truck.
As he approaches the exit, a white sedan pulls in front of him, blocking his truck. Two men then run up and shoot Nijjar before escaping in a silver Toyota Camry.
The co-ordinated attack involved six men and two vehicles. Almost nine months later, the RCMP has yet to name suspects or make arrests in relation to Nijjar's death.
The apparent targeted killing of Nijjar ultimately led to accusations from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that the government of India ordered the killing — a claim that severely damaged diplomatic ties between Canada and India.
India has strongly denied any connection to the killing.
WATCH | The full Fifth Estate episode:
Chuck Thompson, a spokesman with CBC News, said it stands by its journalism on the story.
"To ensure fairness and balance, the documentary included a wide range of voices, witnesses and subject matter experts," he said.
"And, as is the case with all stories on The Fifth Estate, "Contract To Kill" was thoroughly researched, vetted by senior editorial leaders and meets our journalistic standards."
Corynne McSherry, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based organization focusing on civil liberties on the internet, said these actions by the India government are part of a pattern they've seen over the past few years. The government will take advantage of its own laws to pressure social media companies to take down content it doesn't like, she said.
"Unfortunately, at this point, it's got pretty broad legal powers to do that. And as far as we can tell, is not hesitating at all to use them," she said.
"The companies are in a difficult position because on the one hand, if they want to be able to provide services in a given country, they may need to comply with those country's laws whether or not they want to."
View comments (3)
CBC
Wed, March 13, 2024
The Indian government is blocking social media access within its country to a Fifth Estate story that included security video of the deadly shooting of Canadian Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
Wed, March 13, 2024
The Indian government is blocking social media access within its country to a Fifth Estate story that included security video of the deadly shooting of Canadian Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.
(Ben Nelms/CBC - image credit)
YouTube is blocking access in India to a story by CBC's The Fifth Estate on the alleged contract killing of a Canadian Sikh separatist after the Indian government ordered the social media platform to take that action.
The Fifth Estate story released on Friday included video of the fatal shooting of Hardeep Singh Nijjar last June as he left his place of worship in Surrey, B.C.
In an email to CBC on Wednesday, YouTube said it had received an order from India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to block access to the video of the story from its website.
YouTube confirmed to CBC News Wednesday afternoon that "the content has now been blocked from view" on the India YouTube country site. While the content is restricted in India, the video is still available everywhere else on YouTube.
Meanwhile, X, formerly known as Twitter, also informed CBC that it had received a legal removal demand from the Indian government relating to the Fifth Estate story.
YouTube is blocking access in India to a story by CBC's The Fifth Estate on the alleged contract killing of a Canadian Sikh separatist after the Indian government ordered the social media platform to take that action.
The Fifth Estate story released on Friday included video of the fatal shooting of Hardeep Singh Nijjar last June as he left his place of worship in Surrey, B.C.
In an email to CBC on Wednesday, YouTube said it had received an order from India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to block access to the video of the story from its website.
YouTube confirmed to CBC News Wednesday afternoon that "the content has now been blocked from view" on the India YouTube country site. While the content is restricted in India, the video is still available everywhere else on YouTube.
Meanwhile, X, formerly known as Twitter, also informed CBC that it had received a legal removal demand from the Indian government relating to the Fifth Estate story.
David McIntosh/CBC
"Indian law obligates X to withhold access to this content in India; however, the content remains available elsewhere," X said in an email to The Fifth Estate.
"We disagree with this action and maintain that freedom of expression should extend to these posts. Following the Indian legal process, we are in current communication with the Indian authorities."
In emails from YouTube and X to CBC, the platforms said the Indian government was citing the country's Information Technology Act 2000 in making the orders.
According to one section of that act, the government has the power to "intercept, monitor or decrypt any information generated, transmitted, received or stored in any computer resource." Such action can be taken, according to the act, in the interest of:
The sovereignty or integrity of India, defence of India, the security of the state.
Friendly relations with foreign states.
Public order, or for preventing incitement to the commission of any cognizable offence relating to these.
Investigating any offence.
Video shows Nijjar leaving parking lot
The Fifth Estate story that aired last week included video that showed Nijjar, the president of the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara, leaving the parking lot of his place of worship in Surrey on the evening of June 18, 2023, in his grey Dodge Ram pickup truck.
As he approaches the exit, a white sedan pulls in front of him, blocking his truck. Two men then run up and shoot Nijjar before escaping in a silver Toyota Camry.
The co-ordinated attack involved six men and two vehicles. Almost nine months later, the RCMP has yet to name suspects or make arrests in relation to Nijjar's death.
The apparent targeted killing of Nijjar ultimately led to accusations from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that the government of India ordered the killing — a claim that severely damaged diplomatic ties between Canada and India.
India has strongly denied any connection to the killing.
WATCH | The full Fifth Estate episode:
Chuck Thompson, a spokesman with CBC News, said it stands by its journalism on the story.
"To ensure fairness and balance, the documentary included a wide range of voices, witnesses and subject matter experts," he said.
"And, as is the case with all stories on The Fifth Estate, "Contract To Kill" was thoroughly researched, vetted by senior editorial leaders and meets our journalistic standards."
Corynne McSherry, legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based organization focusing on civil liberties on the internet, said these actions by the India government are part of a pattern they've seen over the past few years. The government will take advantage of its own laws to pressure social media companies to take down content it doesn't like, she said.
"Unfortunately, at this point, it's got pretty broad legal powers to do that. And as far as we can tell, is not hesitating at all to use them," she said.
"The companies are in a difficult position because on the one hand, if they want to be able to provide services in a given country, they may need to comply with those country's laws whether or not they want to."
View comments (3)
‘fascist’ India on trial
Andrew Whitehead
Wed, March 13, 2024
Mahesh Raut, one of the accused in the 2018 Bhima Koregaon riot case - Hindustan Times
Stan Swamy, a Jesuit priest, died in custody in India in July 2021. He was 84. He had spent nine months in detention and had been repeatedly denied bail; yet he had not been convicted of any offence. Swamy had Parkinson’s disease, but for several months the prison authorities denied him the sipper-cup he needed to be able to drink without spilling.
In poor health, Father Swamy was moved from jail to hospital a few weeks before his death. He was diagnosed with Covid-19, and died after a heart attack. This was – according to the historian Ramachandra Guha, one of India’s leading public intellectuals – “judicial murder”. Mary Lawlor, a UN Special Rapporteur, said the death was “a stain on India’s human rights record”.
Swamy had been detained under India’s catch-all anti-terrorist legislation, the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, which dates back to 1967. He was accused of inciting clashes between rival groups at a place called Bhima Koregaon (or BK) on New Year’s Day 2018 – though there is no suggestion that he was present – and of being a sympathiser of armed Maoist insurgents.
Although of gentle disposition, Swamy was certainly a turbulent priest. He devoted his life to the most marginalised in India, and particularly to the indigenous peoples known as Adivasis, members of what are regarded as tribal communities who total more than 100 million. Swamy defended their interests, encouraged their self-organisation and stood against attempts to turn their forest, so essential to their life and values, into open-cast mines. He was a thorn in the side of the Indian authorities and corporate interests – and at times of the Church, too. You could say he was a rebel, but he was not an insurgent.
Alpa Shah, an anthropology professor at the London School of Economics, argues in The Incarcerations that the arrest of Swamy and 15 others – lawyers, academics, poets, activists – in what has become known as the “BK case” reveals India’s authoritarian creep. The action against the BK-16, she says, is an attempt to intimidate and muzzle critics of India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, whose party, the Hindu nationalist BJP, is expected to win a third successive general election in the coming weeks.
Narendra Modi (c) has been accused of illiberalising India - Bloomberg
At BK in 2018, a well-organised mob attacked a rally attended by tens of thousands of Dalits, those at the bottom of India’s caste-hierarchy once known as “untouchables”. The violence was alleged to have been orchestrated by two prominent Hindu hardliners, and conducted by those who saw themselves as cheerleaders for Modi and his assertive style of Hindu cultural identity.
Yet the police had no appetite for pursuing politically well-connected local figures, and so – Shah suggests – they turned the case around. Over the course of several months, they rounded up high-profile intellectuals and activists who had been outspoken in championing the interests of the dispossessed, of Dalits and Adivasis and India’s large but increasingly beleaguered Muslim minority. The allegations extended to waging war against the state and plotting the prime minister’s assassination.
Shah knows several of those detained from her work as an anthropologist; her previous book was a well-regarded account of accompanying armed Maoists who remain a formidable force in some Adivasi areas. She’s convinced that the 16 were neither assisting armed insurgency nor plotting assassinations, and had no role in fomenting the clashes in BK.
Alpa Shah, author of The Incarcerations, is a professor at the LSE - William Collins/Chiara Ambrosio
This book, dedicated to those “unjustly incarcerated”, is thus an expression of solidarity. Shah describes those imprisoned as the “last bastions of democracy” as the country slides into – in her words – “an Indian form of fascism”. The use of that incendiary term is justified more by reciting those Indian commentators who have also expressed concerns about totalitarianism, rather than by detailed argument. While Shah is convincing on the degradation of civil society and of secular values in India, the haphazard organisation of her book and a rather pedestrian prose-style don’t help her argument.
Much of Shah’s account is given over to the life stories of the men and women caught up in the case. It’s easy to get lost in the thicket of names and details, but she presents striking evidence, drawing on expert forensic analysis, of the alleged planting of incriminating documents in the laptops of those detained – with cyber trails apparently pointing both to police officers and to Indian hackers-for-hire happy to do this sophisticated dirty work. Astonishingly, Shah even managed to get through on the phone to two of the investigating police officers. One spoke to her at length, insisting that “every mandatory procedure was meticulously followed” in making arrests and that the police had always operated within the law.
But the evidence the police and India’s National Investigation Agency have amassed has not yet been tested in court, and it’s not clear when it will be. As The Incarcerations went to press, no date had been set for a trial. Indian civil-liberties organisations report that fewer than 3 per cent of arrests under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act lead to conviction. Shah suggests that the protracted legal process and pre-trial detention is as much the punishment as any guilty verdict would be.
Andrew Whitehead’s books include A Mission in Kashmir. The Incarcerations is published by William Collins at £30.
Andrew Whitehead
Wed, March 13, 2024
Mahesh Raut, one of the accused in the 2018 Bhima Koregaon riot case - Hindustan Times
Stan Swamy, a Jesuit priest, died in custody in India in July 2021. He was 84. He had spent nine months in detention and had been repeatedly denied bail; yet he had not been convicted of any offence. Swamy had Parkinson’s disease, but for several months the prison authorities denied him the sipper-cup he needed to be able to drink without spilling.
In poor health, Father Swamy was moved from jail to hospital a few weeks before his death. He was diagnosed with Covid-19, and died after a heart attack. This was – according to the historian Ramachandra Guha, one of India’s leading public intellectuals – “judicial murder”. Mary Lawlor, a UN Special Rapporteur, said the death was “a stain on India’s human rights record”.
Swamy had been detained under India’s catch-all anti-terrorist legislation, the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, which dates back to 1967. He was accused of inciting clashes between rival groups at a place called Bhima Koregaon (or BK) on New Year’s Day 2018 – though there is no suggestion that he was present – and of being a sympathiser of armed Maoist insurgents.
Although of gentle disposition, Swamy was certainly a turbulent priest. He devoted his life to the most marginalised in India, and particularly to the indigenous peoples known as Adivasis, members of what are regarded as tribal communities who total more than 100 million. Swamy defended their interests, encouraged their self-organisation and stood against attempts to turn their forest, so essential to their life and values, into open-cast mines. He was a thorn in the side of the Indian authorities and corporate interests – and at times of the Church, too. You could say he was a rebel, but he was not an insurgent.
Alpa Shah, an anthropology professor at the London School of Economics, argues in The Incarcerations that the arrest of Swamy and 15 others – lawyers, academics, poets, activists – in what has become known as the “BK case” reveals India’s authoritarian creep. The action against the BK-16, she says, is an attempt to intimidate and muzzle critics of India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, whose party, the Hindu nationalist BJP, is expected to win a third successive general election in the coming weeks.
Narendra Modi (c) has been accused of illiberalising India - Bloomberg
At BK in 2018, a well-organised mob attacked a rally attended by tens of thousands of Dalits, those at the bottom of India’s caste-hierarchy once known as “untouchables”. The violence was alleged to have been orchestrated by two prominent Hindu hardliners, and conducted by those who saw themselves as cheerleaders for Modi and his assertive style of Hindu cultural identity.
Yet the police had no appetite for pursuing politically well-connected local figures, and so – Shah suggests – they turned the case around. Over the course of several months, they rounded up high-profile intellectuals and activists who had been outspoken in championing the interests of the dispossessed, of Dalits and Adivasis and India’s large but increasingly beleaguered Muslim minority. The allegations extended to waging war against the state and plotting the prime minister’s assassination.
Shah knows several of those detained from her work as an anthropologist; her previous book was a well-regarded account of accompanying armed Maoists who remain a formidable force in some Adivasi areas. She’s convinced that the 16 were neither assisting armed insurgency nor plotting assassinations, and had no role in fomenting the clashes in BK.
Alpa Shah, author of The Incarcerations, is a professor at the LSE - William Collins/Chiara Ambrosio
This book, dedicated to those “unjustly incarcerated”, is thus an expression of solidarity. Shah describes those imprisoned as the “last bastions of democracy” as the country slides into – in her words – “an Indian form of fascism”. The use of that incendiary term is justified more by reciting those Indian commentators who have also expressed concerns about totalitarianism, rather than by detailed argument. While Shah is convincing on the degradation of civil society and of secular values in India, the haphazard organisation of her book and a rather pedestrian prose-style don’t help her argument.
Much of Shah’s account is given over to the life stories of the men and women caught up in the case. It’s easy to get lost in the thicket of names and details, but she presents striking evidence, drawing on expert forensic analysis, of the alleged planting of incriminating documents in the laptops of those detained – with cyber trails apparently pointing both to police officers and to Indian hackers-for-hire happy to do this sophisticated dirty work. Astonishingly, Shah even managed to get through on the phone to two of the investigating police officers. One spoke to her at length, insisting that “every mandatory procedure was meticulously followed” in making arrests and that the police had always operated within the law.
But the evidence the police and India’s National Investigation Agency have amassed has not yet been tested in court, and it’s not clear when it will be. As The Incarcerations went to press, no date had been set for a trial. Indian civil-liberties organisations report that fewer than 3 per cent of arrests under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act lead to conviction. Shah suggests that the protracted legal process and pre-trial detention is as much the punishment as any guilty verdict would be.
Andrew Whitehead’s books include A Mission in Kashmir. The Incarcerations is published by William Collins at £30.
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