Press Council sends notice on sedition case
IN MEDIA WATCH BRIEFS |04/05/2018
The Press Council of India (PCI) has sought a report from the Chhattisgarh government on the filing of a sedition case against Kamal Shukla, the editor of 'Bhumkal Samachar' published from Kanker district. The case was filed against him for sharing on a social media site a cartoon that allegedly carried a..
Sedition charges against 111 in UP
IN MEDIA WATCH BRIEFS |05/12/2017
Sedition charges have been slapped against 111 people for allegedly raising anti-national slogans during the victory march of a Congress candidate in Lakhimpur Kheri who had defeated her BJP rival at the recently concluded civic bodies poll in UP, reports TOI. The candidate denied that the slogans were raised by her followers.
A status quoist, not transformative right
BY ABHINAV CHANDRACHUD| IN BOOKS |18/10/2017
The enactment of Article 19 of the Constitution made merely a rhetorical change, not a substantive one, to the right to free speech in India,
Sedition case against Amnesty fizzles out
IN MEDIA WATCH BRIEFS |16/07/2017
Eleven months after booking Amnesty International, India representatives for sedition following an event in the city, the Bengaluru City Police have filed a B report in the case for want of evidence to make the charge, reports the Hindu. The case had been booked following an event in the city in August last..
IN MEDIA WATCH BRIEFS |18/01/2017
The Indian Womens Press Corp in Delhi, housed for many years in a government bungalow, is a favourite low-cost location for holding press conferences and such like. But it is suddenly drawing attention for a condition it seems to have imposed on those renting space in its premises. Telegraph reports..
Free speech in the courts: legal outcomes in 2016
BY SEVANTI NINAN| IN MEDIA FREEDOM |30/12/2016
Sedition, defamation, censorship, internet shutdowns—the year saw the courts being tested on a range of freedom of expression issues.
IN MEDIA WATCH BRIEFS |19/12/2016
Malayalam writer and theatre activist Kamal C. Chavara, alias Kamalsy Prana, was arrested in Kozhikode on Sunday for a Facebook post where he allegedly slighted the national anthem, reports The Indian Express. Chavara was charged with sedition under Section 124 (A) of the Indian Penal Code after members of the..
IN MEDIA WATCH BRIEFS |27/10/2016
Tausif Ahmed Bhat, the Kashmiri youth in Chhattisgarh who was arrested on charges of sedition for liking a cartoon on Facebook, was finally granted bail by Justice Goutam Bhat of the Chhattisgarh High Court, on his fourth bail plea. The judge said he was not the author of the post..
IN MEDIA WATCH BRIEFS |05/10/2016
A Kashmiri youth is lodged in a jail in Durg, Chhattisgarh, since August 3, on charges of sedition for allegedly liking a Facebook post that made fun of India. He has been refused bail twice and on Oct 4 when it came up again a judge of the High Court reserved his orders on Tauseef..
IN MEDIA WATCH BRIEFS |15/09/2016
How does an SC clarification on sedition percolate to lower court judges actually hearing these cases? It evidently does not. Despite this SC observation last week that criticizing the govt is not sedition, a Kashmiri youth jailed in Durg in Chhattisgarh has been denied bail today, for a second time... ??
BY GEETA SESHU| IN DIGITAL MEDIA |04/09/2016
He is a young Kashmiri man charged with sedition. His offence? Sharing a cartoon showing India being swept by a broom on Facebook. ??
BY SIDDHARTH NARRAIN and GEETA SESHU| IN MEDIA FREEDOM |19/08/2016 ?
Is most free speech becoming seditious because the law is being applied so casually, without the care that is meant to be exercised?
HRW: Govt urged to stop treating critics as criminals
IN SPECIAL REPORTS |25/05/2016
The Indian government should repeal or amend both recent and colonial era laws that are used to criminalize peaceful expression.
Peddling simplistic ideas of nationalism
BY ANANTHAKRISHNAN| IN OPINION |29/02/2016
The media is trying to redefine and appropriate definitions for concepts like nationalism under a propaganda-induced context.
The art of manufacturing international outrage
BY SANKRANT SANU| IN OPINION |25/02/2016
One area of persistent obfuscation in many media accounts, especially in international media, was the use of Kanhaiya Kumar’s speech of Feb 11 as the reason for his arrest.
How Zee TV fuelled state action against JNU students
BY HOOT| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |21/02/2016
Local police filed their FIR not on the basis of the information they gathered on campus on February 9, but on the basis of Zee TV footage made available to them.
A black day for media and democracy
BY NUPUR BASU| IN MEDIA PRACTICE |16/02/2016
Sedition charges, BJP assaulters, attackers in lawyers’ robes, nationalist anchors—the media’s freedom was tested on Monday by all of these.
IN MEDIA WATCH BRIEFS |13/02/2016
A TV spectacle. Last night Nupur Sharma of the BJP and anchor Zakka Jacob had a royal spat on CNN- IBN while debating the JNU students sedition issue. It deteriorated by the second and had Jacob asking Sharma if she lacked any TV decorum and Sharma actually said yes she..
IN SPECIAL REPORTS |31/12/2015
Eight deaths, 30 attacks, 48 cases of defamation, 14 of sedition—its been grim year for free speech in India.
IN MEDIA WATCH BRIEFS |11/12/2015
In the first 10 days of the month so far three new cases of sedition have been filed, one each in Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and in Tamil Nadu. There were two arrests for sedition in Punjab and Haryana, and one case of denial of bail in a sedition case to..
BY NANDITA JHA| IN LAW AND POLICY |13/11/2015
From folk songs to Facebook comments, the charge of sedition is being generously applied.
IN MEDIA WATCH BRIEFS |22/09/2015
Justice Kanade of the Bombay High Court has stayed the Maharashtra government's controversial sedition circular which seeks to bring into its purview negative comments against elected representatives. Adv Mihir Desai, who appeared for petitioners (cartoonist Aseem Trivedi, womens' rights activists Sandhya Gokhale, NJ Hasina and anr.) pointed out discrepancies in the Marathi..
IN MEDIA WATCH BRIEFS |08/09/2015
he uproar over the Maharashtra sedition circular was caused by translation into Marathi, and editing of the original English clause in the court guidelines. The government circular reworded the court guidelines to project a harsher view of what constitutes sedition. The original court guidelines said that the "words, signs or representations against politicians..
Thin line between free and seditious speech?
BY GEETA SESHU| IN MEDIA FREEDOM |06/09/2015
The Maharashtra guidelines ignore the SC distinction and bring elected representatives and government officers within the ambit of sedition. ??
Can guidelines prevent misuse of bad laws?
IN MEDIA FREEDOM |20/03/2015
Guidelines for Sec 66 A of the IT Act and now, for sedition, are scant protection.
Mere criticism is not seditious: Bombay High Court on Aseem Trivedi's cartoons
IN LAW AND POLICY |18/03/2015
Freedom of speech cannot be encroached upon if there is no incitement to violence or intention of disrupting public order, says the judgement.
IN MEDIA FREEDOM |14/08/2014
The FIR against Telangana politician K Kavitha underlines the need to jettison this colonial-era law.
IN MEDIA FREEDOM |04/08/2013
And most definitely not for textbook writers who wrongly omit Arunachal Pradesh from a map of India!
BY NUPUR BASU| IN SPECIAL REPORTS |18/12/2012
The Tamil media was clearly negating a powerful people's movement with its inexplicable prejudices which were fully exploited by the security forces.
IN MEDIA WATCH BRIEFS |17/09/2012
The goverment has decided that the definition of sedition in the 142 year old law has to change. The Group of Ministers on media has decided to approach the Home Ministry to change the law because law enforcement agencies need to differentiate between anti-government protesters and..
A selective notion of corruption
BY ARITRA BHATTACHARYA| IN MEDIA FREEDOM |14/09/2012
Aseem Trivedi's picture of contemporary India reflects only political and bureaucratic corruption, bribery in particular.
IN MEDIA FREEDOM |12/09/2012
The arrest of cartoonist Aseem Trivedi has served to focus attention on the issue of holding a modernizing democracy hostage to colonial laws.
BY Madabhushi Sridhar| IN MEDIA FREEDOM |12/09/2012
The cartoons by Aseem Trivedi may be starkly repulsive and indulge in exaggerated satire, but they cannot be termed seditious.
En masse sedition in Koodankulam
IN CENSORSHIP |26/04/2012
How can a peaceful agitation of villagers against a nuclear power plant in their backyard be a seditious activity? Yet an unprecedented 3500 protestors have been charged with sedition...
IN MEDIA PRACTICE |23/04/2012
Aseem Trivedi is determined to bring the fight for freedom in the virtual media into the 'real' world - on the street, in full view of the public.
IN MEDIA FREEDOM |18/04/2011
Its time we jettisoned sedition, and the Binayak Sen case is a perfect example of why this needs to be done.
IN MEDIA PRACTICE |07/04/2011
The Sedition Law directly attacks the freedom of expression, and is therefore impossible to reconcile with conditions necessary for a healthy atmosphere for culture, art and intellectual life,
IN MEDIA WATCH BRIEFS |01/01/2011
One of last year’s victims of sedition charges was released on New Year’s Day in Srinagar, after the High Court granted him an interim bail on Friday. The teacher Noor Mohammed Bhat was arrested last month for setting an exam question paper around last year’s Kashmir’s unrest. Earlier On Dec..
Lop-sided reading of evidence led to Sen’s conviction
IN MEDIA PRACTICE |31/12/2010
In convicting Binayak Sen of sedition, the sessions court has not only chosen to ignore evidence to the contrary but has also extended the interpretation of section 124A illogically.
Sedition, free speech and dissent
BY FSH| IN MEDIA FREEDOM |30/12/2010
The year 2010 has seen this law invoked by state governments on not less than five occasions, including Dr Sen’s case. Is the law on sedition being invoked a little too often for a democracy that values free speech..
IN MEDIA WATCH BRIEFS |24/12/2010
“One person who won’t be enjoying his Christmas eve is rights activist Binayak Sen…” The opening words of the NewsX evening bulletin item on the conviction of Dr Binayak Sen for sedition and treason. Fit occasion for being flip...
BY Sudeep KS| IN REGIONAL MEDIA |05/12/2010
Following a play and a documentary on the plight of the post-LTTE Tamils, Mathrubhumi front-paged a sedition story implicating the organisers. ??
The sedition case against Roy and Geelani: a case of the reluctant prosecution
BY Rakesh Shukla| IN MEDIA FREEDOM |02/12/2010
The directive of a Delhi metropolitan magistrate to police to file an FIR charging sedition against the writer and the Kashmiri separatist leader, ??
Demand to uphold free speech and expression
IN MEDIA FREEDOM |30/11/2010
Academicians, film-makers, journalists, lawyers, writers and others have come together to condemn the demand to levy charges of sedition against writer Arundhati Roy ??
How sedition crept into the framing of the Constitution
IN MEDIA FREEDOM |06/11/2010
The response of a newly independent nation to cries for freedom indicates its maturity, or lack of it.
Clamping down on the dissenting voice
IN MEDIA FREEDOM |06/11/2010
Despite stricter judicial interpretations of sedition, dissenting voices have been prosecuted under it..
Disaffection and the State: the Law of Sedition in India
IN MEDIA FREEDOM |03/11/2010
Three sedition trials – of Tilak, Gandhi and Sheikh Abdullah – hold out important lessons on freedom of speech and dissent,
IN MEDIA WATCH BRIEFS |02/11/2010
While the Hindu has been more than willing to speak in her defence and give her the space to tell her story, Arundhati Roy is questioning the credentials of TV channels. In her piece in the Hindu she has more than hinted at the nexus between trouble makers and TV workers...
"Sedition charges, despite the Supreme Court"
IN CENSORSHIP |29/10/2010
Though the government has backed down on charging Roy and Geelani with sedition, lesser-known activists in India have been charged with sedition this year. State governments have been ignoring the Supreme Court's qualifier on this law.
But what about the little guys
BY hoot| IN MEDIA FREEDOM |28/10/2010
When you raise your voice a little too stridently against injustice in India’s districts you invite charges of sedition.
Sedition, free speech and dissent
IN MEDIA FREEDOM |27/12/2010
Five instances of sedition in 2010 alone - what does this tell us about our democracy
Orissa journalist languishes in jail
BY DEBABRATA MOHANTY| IN MEDIA FREEDOM |20/11/2009
Choudhury continues to languish behind bars in a cell of R Udaygiri jail in Gajapati as two courts threw out his bail applications.
