SRINAGAR - Fayaz Ahmad's Faim Internet
Cafe 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 cafe.
Fayaz
told IPS it is "impossible" for a cafe 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 cafe, 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 Cafe, was also harassed by the police and
forced to pack up his business. Now, not a single
Internet cafe operates in Sopore, a town of
300,000 people.
In the towns of Srinagar -
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 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.
Kashmiris say both India and Pakistan have
illegally occupied their territory following that
region's independence from British rule in 1947.
For over six decades, residents of the disputed
Valley have been demanding freedom from both India
and Pakistan, who control two-thirds and one-third
of Kashmiri's territory respectively. In
August and September of 2010, at least 110
civilians were killed and thousands injured during
demonstrations that lasted 50 days and spawned
strict curfews.
"The government's response
to popular opposition - blocking access to the
Internet - is a very unhealthy development,"
according to an editorial in Greater Kashmir. "The
move is not only undemocratic in spirit but is
also uncalled for under the circumstances. Except
for the recent three-day protests [on September
16, 17 and 18] over the anti-Islam movie, the
Valley has been experiencing unprecedented peace
for almost two years now."
Internet
blockade 'counterproductive' Columnist and
political commentator Sheikh Showkat told IPS that
the government is choosing a dangerous path by
blocking every outlet of expression.
"In a
place where the space for street protests has
shrunk in recent years, social Web sites have
emerged as the primary medium for the peaceful
expression of individual and collective opinions,"
said Showkat. "The attempt to curb such
communication will not only violate the principle
of freedom of expression but also be
counter-productive in nature."
According
to Showkat, this is not the first time the
government has muzzled free speech. "We have been
experiencing an SMS ban since 2010," he said.
Young people have borne the brunt of this
particular strand of repression. In 2010, an
18-year-old student from Srinagar, Faizan Samad,
became the first person to be arrested for posting
pro-freedom slogans on Facebook. This year alone,
police have identified 24 youths for disseminating
political messages on Facebook. Four have been
arrested on these same charges.
The
reputed English daily Kashmir Times noted, "It is
clear that the establishment has scant regard for
free speech and free ideas. Like in George
Orwell's famous novel 1984, free thinking
itself is becoming a crime and individuals and
groups targeted for 'thought crimes'."
The
opposition People's Democratic Party (PDP) says
that frequent bans on social networking sites and
jamming of mobile phones could agitate Kashmiri
youth further.
"The young boys and girls
use the Internet to stay connected and express
themselves. If they can express themselves online
instead of coming onto the streets, that should be
encouraged," PDP president Mehbooba Mufti said
during a recent session of the Legislative
Assembly, which ended earlier this month. "We may
not be using the Internet much but the youth are
dependent on it," said 52-year-old Mufti.
A student named Majid Rashid told IPS, "I
am part of many online networks that give me fresh
insights about politics and current affairs. I am
connected to sources of information that I am not
able to track otherwise."
Fayaz's popular
cafe, which used to draw over a hundred netizens
every day, has now been reduced to a place where
tutors get their notes typed. From a dozen
computers, the cafe now operates just two
machines, for Fayaz and his co-worker.
"Following my release after a year's
detention I had to take a bank loan to re-start my
cafe. But now I don't allow anyone to browse. I
simply don't want to get into trouble again," he
said.
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