By Scroll Staff
News outlet The Wire on Friday said that the Union government had blocked access to its English website in India “in a clear violation of the Constitutional guarantee of freedom of the press”.
Internet service providers had said that The Wire’s website was “blocked as per the order of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology under the IT Act, 2000”, stated the news outlet.
“We protest this blatant censorship at a critical time for India when sane, truthful, fair and rational voices and sources of news and information are among the biggest assets that India has,” it said. “We are taking all necessary steps to challenge this arbitrary and inexplicable move.”
This comes amid escalating tensions and cross-border strikes between India and Pakistan after the terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam on April 22.
Some users said they were still able to access The Wire. But many others said that they had found a message saying “This website has been blocked as per the order of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology under the IT Act, 2000” or were simply unable to connect to the site.
On Thursday, India blocked the social media accounts of at least four other news portals – Maktoob Media, The Kashmiriyat, Free Press Kashmir and the United States-based Muslim.
The accounts of the news portals were blocked in response to legal demands by the Indian government, according to social media platforms X and Instagram.
The accounts of Maktoob Media, Free Press Kashmir and The Kashmiriyat have been blocked on X, while that of Muslim has been blocked on Instagram. However, the websites of all four news outlets were accessible in India.
In the case of The Wire, while the website itself has been blocked, its social media accounts remain operational.
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