Free Speech Collective

16/02/2024

https://freespeechcollective.in/goi-alleges-malicious-reporting-threatens-to-cancel-french-journalists-oci-card/

Uncategorized GoI alleges “malicious” reporting, threatens to cancel French journalist’s OCI card January 25, 2024 The Indian government’s over-sensitivity towards adverse global media coverage just found another target: a french journalist with an OCI card ! In a surprising move, the Minist...

24/12/2023

What’s left of the Right to Information?

With unabated attacks on users, activists fear the Right to Information (RTI) is more constricted than ever before, its ambit systematically whittled down by laws and policies, says Ashutosh M Shukla.

23/12/2023

Parliament coverage reduced to coverage of political jibes - With literally no serious debate and a deafening silence on important issues, why is media coverage so dismal, asks Kajal Iyer https://freespeechcollective.in/parliament-coverage-reduced-to-coverage-of-political-jibes/

11/12/2023

A stirring event that gave immense hope: Ratna Pathak Shah's book reading brought the stories "From Phansi Yard" alive, Sudha Bharadwaj's insights and passionate plea for legal aid for the most helpless of women prisoners, in conversation with Freny Manecksha while
Sukanya Shantha's presentation of the shocking caste-ridden jail manuals and the plight of the most marginalised.

06/12/2023

People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) Maharashtra and Free Speech Collective (FSC) invite you to a *book reading and conversations at 6 pm on Dec 9 in Bandra.*

*_For the freedom to breathe_*

75 years of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

_“…..if you ask the sickest woman here whether she prefers treatment to being released, she will choose freedom”_ - “From Phansi Yard” by Sudha Bharadwaj

Book Reading by *Ratna Pathak Shah*

*Freny Manecksha* in conversation with *Sudha Bharadwaj*

*Sukanya Shantha* speaks on “Criminal Justice and Prisons - the Media’s Blind Spots"

03/12/2023

Film associations and certain filmmakers in Kerala are seeking regulation of online film reviews, fearing that unfavourable comments will adversely affect the box office. The Kerala High Court, responding to two petitions seeking guidelines for online film critics and vloggers, has issued notice to the Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and Central Board of Film Certification.

Watch Episode 1 of Free Speech Talkies with Laxmi Murthy, where well-known film critic Anna MM Vetticad decodes the implications of the High Court directive on 25 October, 2023 on “review bombing” for free speech and for the right of independent reviewers for fair comment and opinion.

Free Speech Talkies with Laxmi Murthy: Anna MM Vetticad decodes the implications of the High Court directive on 25 October, 2023 on "review bombing."

20/11/2023

After 23 months in jail ! "The Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh High Court has quashed the detention of journalist Sajjad Gul under the Public Safety Act with the observation that there was no specific allegation against him to show that his activities could be ‘prejudicial to the security of the State’.

The court order comes a day after the High Court granted bail to editor Fahad Shah, Editor of The Kashmir Wallah, previously detained under PSA."

The court said that the detention order was based on ‘vague grounds’ and directed release the Kashmiri journalist. SRINAGAR: The Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh High Court has quashed the detention of journalist Sajjad Gul under the Public Safety Act with the observation that there was no specific al...

16/06/2023

Sometimes the most innocuous of things can take on hidden meaning. A schoolchild's neatly written exercise is the paper packing for this box of cherries, coming all the way from Kashmir. A message for unity.

03/05/2023

Welcome to Kashmir! The tourist paradise! What do we see in Kashmir? What do we hear? What do we know of this beautiful paradise on Earth? A Free Speech Collective campaign for World Press Freedom …

02/05/2023

Welcome to Kashmir....the tourist paradise!

A Free Speech Collective campaign for World Press Freedom Day, May 3, 2023

Click on the link to read more : https://freespeechcollective.in/2023/05/02/media-freedom-in-kashmir-after-art-370-abrogation/

02/05/2023

A Free Speech Collective campaign for World Press Freedom Day, May 3, 2023

Click on the link to read more : https://freespeechcollective.in/2023/05/02/media-freedom-in-kashmir-after-art-370-abrogation/

16/03/2023

These proceedings, popularly known as ‘tadipar’, are increasingly being used against students, social activists and environmental activists who have been speaking out against harmful infrastructure projects. Apart from the attempt to stigmatise them in their neighbourhood, the move to ‘remove’ them physically from sites of protest also cuts them off from disseminating information about illegal activities rampant in controversial project areas.

The externment proceedings initiated against Tabrez Ali Sayed, the well known youth activist of the Save Aarey movement, has turned into a tool of censorship, fear members of the movement. Adding t…

03/03/2023

https://freespeechcollective.in/2023/02/27/when-story-tellers-are-criminalised-new-tales-in-kashmirs-new-order/Jism par qaid hai jazbaat pe zanjeerein hain
Fikr mehboos hai guftaar pe taazerein hain

(With caged bodies and chained emotions
Imprisoned are our thoughts and utterances censored)

Safeguarding the right to freedom of expression and the right to dissent

03/03/2023

New Tales in Kashmir’s New Order : The Forgotten Stories

One of the biggest casualties of the administration’s massive crackdown against journalists Kashmir is that many important stories remain hidden or half-told. There are hardly an investigative stories of the disempowered, issues related to environment, global warming, climate change, gender, child rights and civil liberties.

What are these stories? Why have they been forgotten in the ‘new order’ of Naya Kashmir?
In Part II, we take a look at some of them.

Part II One of the biggest casualties of the administration’s massive crackdown against journalists Kashmir is that many important stories remain hidden or half-told. There are hardly an investigat…

02/02/2023

Finally! After 850days in custody in jails in Uttar Pradesh for the “crime” of traveling to cover a ghastly and tragic crime of the gang-rape and death of a dalit woman in Hathras, Siddique Kappan walks out to freedom.

Finally! After 850days in custody in jails in Uttar Pradesh for the “crime” of traveling to cover a ghastly and tragic crime of the gang-rape and death of a dalit woman in Hathras, Sidd…

30/09/2022

More than 90 years after his death by hanging, the revolutionary Bhagat Singh crops up in the most unexpected of places...

24/09/2022

In the episode 8 of the Free Speech Podcast, Radhika Jhalani of SFLC.in is joined by Geeta Seshu, journalist and the founder of Free Speech Collective, as th...

08/09/2022

मानानीय सरन्यायाधीश श्री उदय उमेश लळित. सुप्रीम कोर्ट ऑफ इंडिया विषय :- बिल्किसबानों केसमधील बलात्कारी आणि कुटुं.....

15/07/2022

Additional Sessions Judge Devendra Kumar Jangala of the Delhi District Court granted bail to AltNews co-founder Mohammed Zubair and said that “free speech is the proper foundation of a democratic society.”

https://freespeechcollective.in/2022/07/15/mohd-zubair-bail-orderfree-speech-foundation-of-a-democracy/

Additional Sessions Judge Devendra Kumar Jangala of the Delhi District Court granted bail to AltNews co-founder Mohammed Zubair and said that “free speech is the proper foundation of a democr…

12/07/2022

@ Manjul nails it!

08/07/2022

Murder of RTI activist in Madhya Pradesh
https://freespeechcollective.in/2022/07/06/murder-of-rti-activist-in-madhya-pradesh/

Ranjeet Soni, 46 years old, was shot dead in broad daylight at around 5 pm on June 2, 2022. He was shot in the back of the head at point blank range within the premises of the office of the Public …

08/07/2022

With 13 mediapersons in custody in India, whither free speech?
https://freespeechcollective.in/2022/07/01/with-13-mediapersons-in-custody-in-india-whither-free-speech/

The arrest of journalist and co-founder of the fact-checker site Altnews, Mohamed Zubair, on Monday, 27 June 2022, barely a day after the arrest of journalist and anti-communalism activist Teesta S…

08/07/2022

How will the Proposed Amendments to the IT Rules Affect Free Speech and Intermediaries?
https://freespeechcollective.in/2022/06/24/how-will-the-proposed-amendments-to-the-it-rules-affect-free-speech-and-intermediaries/

Enacted by MeitY in May 2021, the Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code Rules 2021.sought to both protect ‘digital Indians’ from the harms of Big Tech intermediaries and regulate th…

08/07/2022

‘The Activist’ journalist Amir Hamza is still in custody
https://freespeechcollective.in/2022/06/20/the-activist-journalist-amir-hamza-is-still-in-custody/

Four journalists covering the Agnipath protests in Patna were detained by police after one of them, Amir Hamza, was roughed up and shoved by a police officer. Hamza, a journalist working with a new…

08/07/2022

When hate speech falls short of being free speech
https://freespeechcollective.in/2022/06/19/when-hate-speech-falls-short-of-being-free-speech/

Republished from The Leaflet with permission Hate speech vitiates the very purpose of free speech, which is the free and fearless operation of a human mind that constantly seeks answers and the tru…

03/05/2022

Journalism Is Not A Crime…so why are they still in jail?

On World Press Freedom Day, May 3, 2022, this special focus from Free Speech Collective on journalists and writers, from India, who are in jail for their work.

https://www.slideshare.net/FreeSpeechCollective/wpfd-fsc-may-2022pptx

Journalism Is Not A Crime…so why are they still in jail? On World Press Freedom Day, May 3, 2022, this special focus from Free Speech Collective on journalists…

02/05/2022

https://youtu.be/cov5pFVdJzs
On May 3, on the eve of World Press Freedom Day 2022, we present

FEAR OF SPEECH

A short film by students of Whistling Woods International, the film, communication and creative arts institute located in Mumbai, India, done in association with Free Speech Collective.

Ziva, a young journalist, fears that dissent has slowly become criminal in Indian democracy.

Director: Fiza Batra
Writer: Lavanya
Produced by: Lavanya & Mihika
DoP: Siddharth Kaher
Production designer: Ayush Bhavsar
Editor: Suparn Karmakar
Assistant producer: Abhinab Bora
Sound design & colorist: Siddharth Kaher
Featuring: Lavanya

Presented by:Whistling Woods International in association with Free Speech Collective

On May 3, on the eve of World Press Freedom Day 2022, we presentFEAR OF SPEECHA short film by students of Whistling Woods International, the film, communicat...

06/04/2022

TMC MP MahuaMoitra makes an impassioned appeal to take back the Criminal Identification Bill. She refers to chilling data on the misuse of the UAPA, the 28 percent increase in sedition cases and the Free Speech Collective report on the arrests of journalists in India.

As she correctly says, if this bill becomes a law, we are entering a full-fledged police state. "Any opposition will be brutalised into silence."

https://youtu.be/dMdL8q1MxYY

“The Unlawful Activities Prevention Act has been misused and today, we have a fear that this Bill itself may be misused,” says TMC MP from West Bengal, Mahua...