Internet Becomes Newest Victim of Repression in Kashmir
SRINAGAR; 18, Oct 2012: Fayaz Ahmad’s Faim Internet Café in the Sopore township of Indian Kashmir was booming until a year ago, when police entered his premises without warning and seized all his computers.
Fayaz himself was taken into custody after being told that someone had sent a “suspicious” email from his café.
Fayaz told Indian Press Service it is “impossible” for a café owner to control the actions of his customers.
“All I could do was note down the names and addresses of my visitors, maintain a record of their identity cards and list the times (of their arrival and departure from the café),” said Fayaz.
He is not the only person to have his life seriously disrupted by the government’s clampdown on Internet users throughout the state of Jammu and Kashmir.
Rayees Ahmad, owner of Hughes Internet Café, was also harassed by the police and forced to pack up his business.
Kashmiri youth at an internet cafe in central Srinagar. Credit: Athar Parvaiz/IPS Now, not a single Internet café operates in Sopore, a town of 300,000 people.
In the towns of Sringar – the economic capital of Indian Kashmir – Anantnag and Baramulla, many young boys have been picked up from their homes for expressing their personal views on Facebook and Twitter. Popular sites like YouTube have been blocked. Text messaging services have been jammed.
Yet when Indian Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde visited Lal Chowk, a city square in Srinagar that has served as a meeting point for rights activists since the 1980s, he failed to mention the attack on freedom of expression in the Valley.
“With 500 security personnel present in and around Lal Chowk, and mobile phones jammed, the minister claimed that everything was (fine) in Kashmir,” Khurrum Parvez, a renowned human rights activist and convener of the Coalition of Civil Society (CCS), told IPS in reference to the two-day official visit last week.
The Indian minister’s silence did not come as a shock to many civil society activists here, who have long expressed concerns about the government’s consistent efforts to curb freedom of speech and the right to access social media and online communications.
“Every time a high profile (official) visits Kashmir, and every time Kashmiris try to express their political aspirations or protest about the violation of their rights, Web sites like Facebook and YouTube are blocked while the mobile phones are jammed for days on end,” Hameeda Nayeem, a social activist with a long involvement in Kashmir’s human rights movement, told IPS.
Local newspapers in Indian Kashmir have also been drawing attention to these violations, which the government claims is a response to a surge of protests across the Valley
Fayaz himself was taken into custody after being told that someone had sent a “suspicious” email from his café.
“All I could do was note down the names and addresses of my visitors, maintain a record of their identity cards and list the times (of their arrival and departure from the café),” said Fayaz.
He is not the only person to have his life seriously disrupted by the government’s clampdown on Internet users throughout the state of Jammu and Kashmir.
Rayees Ahmad, owner of Hughes Internet Café, was also harassed by the police and forced to pack up his business.
Kashmiri youth at an internet cafe in central Srinagar. Credit: Athar Parvaiz/IPS Now, not a single Internet café operates in Sopore, a town of 300,000 people.
In the towns of Sringar – the economic capital of Indian Kashmir – Anantnag and Baramulla, many young boys have been picked up from their homes for expressing their personal views on Facebook and Twitter. Popular sites like YouTube have been blocked. Text messaging services have been jammed.
Yet when Indian Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde visited Lal Chowk, a city square in Srinagar that has served as a meeting point for rights activists since the 1980s, he failed to mention the attack on freedom of expression in the Valley.
“With 500 security personnel present in and around Lal Chowk, and mobile phones jammed, the minister claimed that everything was (fine) in Kashmir,” Khurrum Parvez, a renowned human rights activist and convener of the Coalition of Civil Society (CCS), told IPS in reference to the two-day official visit last week.
The Indian minister’s silence did not come as a shock to many civil society activists here, who have long expressed concerns about the government’s consistent efforts to curb freedom of speech and the right to access social media and online communications.
“Every time a high profile (official) visits Kashmir, and every time Kashmiris try to express their political aspirations or protest about the violation of their rights, Web sites like Facebook and YouTube are blocked while the mobile phones are jammed for days on end,” Hameeda Nayeem, a social activist with a long involvement in Kashmir’s human rights movement, told IPS.
Local newspapers in Indian Kashmir have also been drawing attention to these violations, which the government claims is a response to a surge of protests across the Valley
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