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India: Free speech in 2016 - First Three Months | a report from The Hoot

7 April 2016

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The Hoot - 5 April 2016

Free speech: a dire three months

The first quarter has seen not just censorship but violence, sedition and defamation cases, arrests and a murder

Research by NANDITA JHA

FREE SPEECH IN 2016: FIRST QUARTER REPORT

TheHoot.org

The first quarter of this year has been a significant one for issues related to free speech.

Apart from the turbulence in February over the sedition cases filed at Jawaharlal Nehru University, the arrests of students, and the allegations regarding doctored videos, the period saw an overall increase in the number of sedition cases filed, recorded the murder of one journalist, saw increases in attacks on journalists and media property, saw a number of defamation cases filed against the media and the political class, and logged many instances of censorship of different kinds, affecting the media, the arts, as well as ordinary citizens.

This period also saw significant legal developments which affect the climate for free speech, at the level of the supreme court and the high courts.

Highlights

  • Law of sedition gets a fresh lease of life - 11 new cases filed
  • Fourteen attacks, two arrests and seven threats affect press freedom, one journalist murdered.
  • Seventeen cases of censorship including internet blocks.
  • Six defamation notices sent to the media by the Tamil Nadu government or its ministers in 2016.
  • Fourteen defamation suits filed involving politicians, six legal notices sent.
  • Supreme Court says mobile internet can be banned under section 144 of the CrPC
  • Supreme Court stays proceedings initiated by UP Assembly on a privilege notice against the editorial management of India Today.
  • Government announces scanning of all media to monitor negative news.
  • Government appoints panel to re-examine film censorship.

Read full report at: http://www.thehoot.org/research/special-reports/free-speech-a-dire-three-months-9272