Pop star Rihanna and environmental campaigner Greta Thunberg have drawn global attention to Indian farmers’ fight against new agriculture laws, shining a spotlight on its suspension of Internet services at protest sites around New Delhi.
“Why aren’t we talking about this?! #FarmersProtest,” Rihanna wrote on Twitter to her more than 100 million followers, linking to an article about the communications crackdown.
By yesterday, her tweet had been liked by more than 514,000 people and was shared more than 202,000 times.
Photo: Reuters
The Indian government has fortified Delhi’s borders and sought to block the Twitter accounts of key protest leaders and journalists, after farmers’ unions called for roads to be blocked across India on Saturday last week in their latest protest against the new laws, as well as the crackdown against protesters and reduced farm sector allocation in the annual budget announced on Monday.
With 8,927 hours of blacked out or curbed bandwidth access, the Indian government restricted Internet use more than any other nation last year, the Global Cost of Internet Shutdowns report said.
“We stand in solidarity with the #FarmersProtest in India,” Thunberg wrote on Twitter.
Known for its sensitivity to criticism, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs yesterday issued a statement that blamed “vested interests” trying to “mobilize international support against India.”
“The temptation of sensationalist social media hashtags and comments, especially when resorted to by celebrities and others, is neither accurate nor responsible,” the ministry said, adding the hashtags #IndiaTogether #IndiaAgainstPropaganda.
At least 122 people have so far been arrested in the Indian capital ahead of the latest demonstrations and following violent clashes on Tuesday last week when thousands of protesters entered New Delhi for a tractor rally, Delhi Police said in a statement.
Police investigations have also been initiated against several journalists and opposition Indian lawmaker Shashi Tharoor for posts about the police response to that violence.
About 250 Twitter accounts, including those belonging to the news magazine The Caravan, other journalists and activists, were on Monday blocked for several hours over claims they spread rumors about the protests.
The handles, restricted “in response to a valid legal request from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology” were later restored because they constitute “free speech and are newsworthy,” Twitter said in a statement.
Police have erected concrete barricades, spread concertina wire and hammered long metal spikes at the key protests sites on the outskirts of the capital where tens of thousands of farmers have been gathering since late November last year.
“The government is desperate to quell the farmers protest by any means,” protest leader Darshan Pal Singh said. “They are violating human rights, harassing farmers and creating fear for protesters.”
The farmers are demanding the repeal of the legislation pushed through parliament by Inadian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, which they say would make agriculture vulnerable to market vagaries by allowing corporates to take control of farming.
While the government has offered to suspend the reforms for 18 months and the Supreme Court set up a mediation committee, protesters have remained firm on their demand the laws be scrapped.
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