Mohammed Zubair is an Indian journalist and co-founder of Alt News, an Indian non-profit fact-checking website. He made headlines on June 27, 2022, when he was arrested by the Delhi Police for allegedly hurting religious sentiments through a tweet he posted in 2018.
Wiki/Biography
Mohammad Zubair was born on December 29 and hails from Bangalore, Karnataka. His zodiac sign is Capricorn.
family
He comes from a Muslim family. Not much is known about his parents and siblings.
Profession
Zubair has worked as a software engineer at telecommunications giant Nokia for more than 10 years. Alt News was founded in 2017 by Mohammed Zubair and former software engineer Pratik Sinha to combat fake news. For about a year, Zubair only helped Sinha run the site while continuing to work for Nokia. He eventually quit his job at Nokia in September 2018 and joined Alt News as a full-time employee. On December 16, 2019, he became a director of the Pravda Media Foundation, which operates Alt News.
dispute
Booking under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offenses Act
In August 2020, the Delhi Police booked Zubair in the POCSO case based on a complaint filed by National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) Chairman Priyank Kanoongo. Two FIRs were lodged against him in Delhi and Raipur. On August 6, Zubair responded to an abusive message from Twitter user Jagdish Singh by using a photo of Singh showing a little girl, who may be his granddaughter. Zubair blurred out her face in the image she posted and tweeted,
Hi Jagdish Singh, does your lovely granddaughter know about your part-time job of abusing people on social media? I recommend you change your profile photo. “
NCPCR sought action against Zubair for “stalking minor girls on Twitter”. However, the Delhi High Court in September 2020 provided interim protection from arrest to Zubair. In October 2020, the Chhattisgarh High Court also passed a similar order.
Flag Nupur Sharma for derogatory remarks about Prophet Muhammad
In May 2022, BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma angered the Muslim community when she made controversial comments about Prophet Muhammad during a TV debate on the Times Now channel. Mohammad Zubair shared a video of her outburst on Twitter, pointing out Sharma’s derogatory remarks about the Prophet Mohammad. She, therefore, accused Zubair of spreading false narratives, damaging the atmosphere, causing communal disharmony and spreading hatred against her and her family. She accused Zubair of receiving rape threats from social media users following Zubair’s tweet.
Prime-time debates in India have become platforms that encourage hate-mongers to speak ill of other religions. @ERANowanchor @navikakumar Fanatic communal haters and BJP spokespersons are being encouraged to spout rubbish that could incite riots.shame on you @vineetjaintimes pic.twitter.com/lrUlkHEJp5
— Mohammad Zubair (@zoo_bear) May 27, 2022
Calls Mahant Bajrang Muni ‘Udasin’, Yati Narsinghanand and Swami Anand Swarup ‘hate mongers’
In June 2022, an FIR was lodged in Uttar Pradesh for allegedly hurting religious sentiments by calling Mahant Bajrang Muni “Udasin”, Yati Narsinghanand and Swami Anand Swarup as “hate mongers” on Twitter. The FIR was lodged on the complaint of Bhagwan Sharan, the Sitapur unit chief of the Hindu Sher Sena.
Booked for hurting religious sentiments
He was arrested by Delhi Police on June 27, 2022, for an objectionable tweet he had posted in 2018 against a Hindu deity. The image he tweeted was from Kissi Se Na Kehna, a 1983 Hindi film by Hrishikesh Mukherjee. A user named Hanuman Bhakt @balajikijaiiin shared Zubair’s tweet, which wrote:
Before 2014: Honeymoon Hotel After 2014: Hanuman Hotel #SanskaariHotel
Hanuman Bhakt’s response to Mohammed Zubair’s 2018 tweet
According to the FIR, Bhakt @balajikijaiiin tweeted: “Associating our God Hanumanji with honeymoon is a direct insult to Hindus as he is an ascetic. Please take action against this guy.” He The case was booked under IPC sections 153A (promoting enmity between religious groups) and 295 (injuring or defiling a place of worship with intent to insult the religion of any class). Thereafter, he was brought before a magistrate who sent him to police custody for one day. Zubair’s attorney, Flinda Grover, argued that many social media users tweeted the same post, but only Zubair was targeted by police. Grover also claimed that Zubair’s Muslim faith, name and profession made him a target for police. On June 28, 2022, Zubair was remanded in police custody for four days. His arrest has raised concerns about a deterioration in press freedom in India.
temporary bail
On July 20, 2022, the Supreme Court granted him interim bail in connection with six cases registered by the Uttar Pradesh police accusing him of hurting religious sentiments through his Twitter posts. A bench of justices DY Chandrachud, Surya Kant and AS Bopanna told the Uttar Pradesh government:
The existence of a power of arrest must be distinguished from its exercise. The power of arrest must be exercised with caution. ”
Spreading hatred against cricketer Ardeep Singh
In September 2022, Bharatiya Janata Party leader Manjinder Singh Sirsa lodged a police complaint against Zubair and accused him of spreading disparagement against cricketer Ashedi through his tweets Arshdeep Singh’s bad catch in the Asia Cup match against Pakistan cost India the match. According to Sirsa, most of Zubair’s tweets came from “Pakistani accounts” targeting Ashdeep Singh and the Sikh community.
Booked for revealing identity of child victim
On August 28, 2023, the Uttar Pradesh police filed an FIR against Mohammed Zubair at the Mansurpur police station for allegedly leaking the identity of a seven-year-old Muslim boy named Tripta Tyagi was slapped by a classmate on the instruction of his teacher. Zubair was booked under Section 74 of the Juvenile Justice Act on a complaint filed by a person named Vishnudutt. Zubair spoke about this in an interview and said he was the only one to be pointed out, although the video was shared by many others, including online media.
Facts/Trivia
- Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, addressed Zubair’s arrest in response to questions at a daily press briefing in the United States, saying:
Anywhere in the world, it is very important that people are allowed to express their views freely and that journalists are allowed to express their views freely without any threat of harassment… Journalists should not be criticized for what they write, what they tweet and imprisoned for what he published. they said. This applies anywhere in the world, including in this room. “
- After his arrest in June 2022, multiple media outlets reported that Zubair’s bank account had seen transactions exceeding Rs 5 million in the previous days. Pratik Sinha, co-founder of Alt News, denied the accusations against Zubair via tweets, saying that police linked donations received by Alt News to Zubair.
Fact check: Absolutely a lie. Police are linking donations received by Alt News to Zubair. All funds received by Alt News go to the organization’s bank, not to any individual. I have a bank statement from Zubair’s personal account that exposes this lie. pic.twitter.com/esrmEVpTPp
— Pratik Sinha (@free_thinker) June 28, 2022
- Mohammed Zubair has been named to the Oslo Peace Institute’s 2022 Nobel Peace Prize nominees along with his co-founder Pratik Sinha.
Categories: Biography
Source: HIS Education