"Twitter accused of censoring Indian critic of Hindu nationalism", 7 December 2020

Twitter has been accused of censoring the prominent Indian journalist Salil Tripathi by suspending his account, after he tweeted on subjects including the anniversary of the demolition of the Babri mosque and his work on India’s shrinking democratic space.

Writers including Salman Rushdie and Amitav Ghosh expressed anger after Tripathi, who is chair of PEN International’s Writers in Prison Committee, had his Twitter account suspended on Sunday without warning. A rightwing Hindu nationalist group called Deshi Army, which has 26,000 followers on Twitter, claimed victory after the suspension.

... Tripathi posted a video on Twitter of him reading his own poem which addressed the [Babri mosque] demolition, Indian independence and the 2002 religious riots in Gujarat, where upwards of 1000 people, mainly Muslims, were killed.

His account was suspended shortly afterwards. A statement from Twitter said Tripathi’s account “has been temporarily suspended for publishing a list that violates our abusive behaviour policy”. Speaking to the Guardian, Tripathi said: “Twitter’s decision-making has been opaque and arbitrary. Twitter is a private space which creates the illusion of being a public space, which it clearly is not, and takes decisions on free speech and human rights that it does not have the mandate, expertise, or capacity for.”