New Delhi: The Haryana government has extended the ban of internet and bulk messaging in seven districts in view of the farmers’ protest as the Punjab and Haryana high court heard a plea against the internet suspension and other prohibitive measures taken to stop farmers from reaching Delhi through Haryana.Several X accounts that had been communicating the status of the farmers’ Delhi Chalo movement have been withheld in an opaque move.The high court has asked why farmers should not be allowed to move through a National Highway seeing that they had the right to movement and assembly, Times of India has reported.A division bench of acting Chief Justice G.S. Sandhawalia and Justice Lapita Banerji considered the public interest litigation by Panchkula lawyer Uday Pratap Singh against the sealing of Delhi’s borders – photos of which have flooded social media. Police have put up barricades made of cement, installed spikes and placed layers of obstacles on the road to prevent farmers from reaching Delhi.Section 144 has been imposed in some areas, banning assembly.The court has impleaded the Delhi government and asked for responses from the Haryana, Punjab and Chandigarh governments and administration respectively.Farmers’ organisations Kisan Mazdoor Morcha and Samyukta Kisan Morcha who are leading the Delhi Chalo expedition have also been impleaded.Meanwhile, the districts where there is no internet in Haryana are Ambala, Kurukshetra, Kaithal, Jind, Hisar, Fatehabad and Sirsa, Deccan Herald reported. Internet will be off in these areas till February 15, Thursday.From a reliable medium to an opaque oneLawyer and former head of the Internet Freedom Foundation has noted on X as to how “timely and reliable” a medium the site was for the first chapter of the farmers’ protest in 2020-2021. Then, it was called Twitter and was run by Jack Dorsey. In October 2022, Elon Musk purchased Twitter, which was renamed and began to adhere to policies aimed at appeasing local laws – even if it infringed upon the freedom of speech.Twitter was a reliable and timely medium for farmers during their protests in 2020-21.They issued official press releases, documented police excesses, built community and sympathy for their cause with hashtags. It became a vital informational pipeline for farmers to convey…— Apar (@apar1984) February 13, 2024“They issued official press releases, documented police excesses, built community and sympathy for their cause with hashtags. It became a vital informational pipeline for farmers to convey their demands and debunk disinformation when the TV broadcast and news networks are clearly partisan in favour of the Union Government. All of this is a legal democratic right in a country with the fundamental right to speech,” Gupta wrote.The situation today is different, he added, noting that blocking orders for X accounts of farmers’ leaders had clearly been issued in advance. “This form of pre-censorship is without any transparency or natural justice,” he added.Gupta also pointed out that under the new ownership, the site no longer discloses withheld URLs to the Lumen Database, thus taking away any transparency.Gupta adds:The government on its part will not disclose or submit to accountability. Why block entire accounts in advance? Is the account itself illegal? It will not bother asking these questions for fewer people will ask them today than two years ago. As its march towards total power becomes menacing it commands greater levels of social compliance. Either by discipline, despondency or indoctrination. This is not surprising, what does provide anguish is the vile commentary against farmers on social media. How easy it is to forget that close to 750 protestors who lost their lives? Have we as a society lost all civility in disagreement?
