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[Imc-india] INDIA IMC PROPOSAL FOR EMERGENCY EDITORIAL POLICY: DEADLINE 7 SEPTEMBER
Montgomery Cheddar ganeshmukti at yahoo.ie
Sun Aug 31 13:11:25 PDT 2003
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IMC India Proposal for Emergency Editorial Policy -
Deadline 7 September 2003
1. Background
The large number of posts promoting communal hatred
and violence on the newswire and the complete lack of
communication by the India Indymedia editorial team
(known as the “Madurai collective”) regarding this
problem is a significant causes for concern. Some of
the threats were targetted at individuals, with
photographs put up and threats of rape, torture and
murder. They appear to be targetted for their
criticism of Hindutva fascism, indicating that there
is a concerted effort on the part of some individuals
to swamp India Indymedia with messages of hate. On a
daily basis, there have been dozens of anti-Muslim and
anti-Christian postings that encourage communal
violence, genocide and expulsion. There have also been
a small number of anti-Hindu posts which could be the
work of agent provocateurs from the Hindutva right.
A number of appeals to the Madurai collective were
issued by those worried about the way in which India
IMC was run, from local activists, members of the
Indian Diaspora and among those involved in the
Indymedia movement.
On the India IMC list the following, a number of
attempts to contact the Madurai collective were made
by at least eight people of the IMC India mailing
list, starting with a letter expressing concern and
offering help to the collective on 21 August. The
Madurai collective failed to respond to these
concerns, although it continued to be active in hiding
posts – many of which had no racist or violent
content. The situation was also discussed on the IMC
Process list and in other Indymedia newswires, notably
UK Indymedia.
2. Emergency policy
There appears to be a consensus among all those
involved in these discussions that:
- the threats of violence and racist language have
gone beyond the bounds of acceptability and cannot be
regarded as in keeping with the spirit of free speech
- some form of editorial intervention is needed to
ensure free speech without intimidatory language.
- the Madurai collective, for whatever reason, is
failing to meet the challenge and has, in fact, hidden
articles which are not provocative
It is therefore proposed to give editorial access to
the newswire to “hide” posts which are one or more of
the following:
- racist - ie hate against religious groups and
nationalities - which goes beyond a reasonable
critique
- encouraging violence against named individuals
However, posts which are critiques of political groups
– both left and right – and individuals should be
allowed on the newswire, if they do not encourage hate
propaganda or violence.
The people below ask for editorial access commit
themselves to supporting the existing two collectives
in India (Madurai and Mumbai)
Ganesh
Based in Kolkata, Ganesh is a human rights activist
campaigning for Dalit rights and works as a media
consultant and journalist.
Harsh Kapoor
an Indian national based near Montpellier in France,
have been active on issues of India Pakistan peace
process (since 1994) and working on challenging
fundamentalist politics in S. Asia . I run the South
Asia Citizens Web and its associated list South Asia
Citizens Wire (since 1996 and 1998) In Nov 2002 SACW
co-published the 'Foreign Exchange of Hate' report on
Hindutva's American funding. Also the founder of South
Asians Against Nukes (a web site and a list) and the
India Pakistan Arms race and Militarisation Watch
newsletter
3. Long-term debate
Arising from comments made in the debate over India
IMC’s editorial policy, there needs to consider the
following objectives in the long-term:
- Creation of new local editorial collectives, eg
Kolkata, New Delhi, Bangalore
- Technical solutions to ensure an end to hate and
violence on the newswire, learning from the experience
of collectives in the Netherlands and Germany
- Wider recruitment of committed Indymedia activists
beyond the Madurai collective
- Developing contacts with groups and grass-roots NGOs
who may not have regular access to the Internet, but
who would benefit from participation in Indymedia to
report their activities.
4. Annex: Examples of posts on India Indymedia
newswire
Threats of rape and murder (not hidden)
Anti-Muslim hate (not hidden)
Articles hidden by the Madurai collective, which have
no racist or violence content
“Resources for secular action”, 30 August,
“Is India going the way of 1930s Germany?”, 29 August,
“Nickerwalas suck history out of their thumbs. Who
needs facts?”, 29 August,
“VHP has hijacked Hindu religion”, 29 August,
“My letter to the President of India”, 27 August,
“Anti-Modi demonstration in London”, 26 August,
________________________________________________________________________
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