Twitter suspends writer Salil Tripathi's account for 'offensive' poem

Twitter suspended the account of wellknown journalist author and activist Salil Tripathi on Sunday after he tweeted a video of himself reciting a poem about the 1992 Babri Masjid demolition and the 2002 Gujarat riotsTwitterblocked his account after the tweet was reported as lsquooffensiversquoTripathi had tweeted a video of himself reciting his poem lsquoMy Motherrsquos Faultrsquo which had first appeared in his bookOffence The Hindu Case ndash Manifestos for the 21stCentury published in 2009 The author lives in the US and currently heads PEN Internationalrsquos Writers in Prison CommitteeAccording to his official website Tripathi has bylines inThe Wall Street JournalThe International Herald TribuneThe Washington PostThe New York TimesThe New RepublicThe New YorkerandThe San Francisco Chronicle among other publications He received the Mumbai Press Clubrsquos Red Ink Award for human rights journalism in 2015In response to an emailed set of questions from MidDay asking why it had suspended Tripathirsquos account Twitter said The referenced account has been temporarily suspended for publishing a list that violates ourabusive behaviour policy To regain access the account holder needs to edit or remove the specific media or content to come into compliance Learn more about the range of enforcementshereSpeaking to MidDay Tripathi said ldquoTwitter is a private company and it says it has policies that can decide what it can allow to be said on its platform That is its right To decide what to say on the platform is my right When Twitter chooses to suspend anyone it has to be prepared to be judged if it is applying the policy consistently and without discrimination Its record has been poor in this regard I have done nothing that I should express regret for the ball is in their court nowrdquoTwitter had similarly blocked the account of columnist and author Aakar Patel former executive director of Amnesty International India in June this year In fact Patel was arrested on September 23 and released on bail on the basis of a complaint filed by Purnesh ModiBJP MLA from Surat West for posting allegedly ldquooffensiverdquo tweets against Gujaratrsquos Ghanchi community ldquoIf Twitter encounters Saint saliltripathi in custody we will move UNESCOrdquo Patel tweeted on Monday about Tripathirsquos Twitter suspensionHas criminal saliltripathi served out his full sentence yet Release him jackmdash Aakar Patel Aakar__Patel December 7 2020Many other authorsactivists and even politiciansexpressed solidarity with Tripathi ndash ironically on Twitter itselfAuthor Salman Rushdie ndash against whom Iranrsquos supreme leader Ayatollah Khomeini had issued a fatwa in 1989 for his book lsquoSatanic Versesrsquo forcing the author to go into hiding for the better part of a decadendash tweeted ldquoThis is an outrageous act of censorship against one of the most important advocates of free speech Twitter stop it nowrdquoAlso ReadAfter 27 years Nobel panel condemns Salman Rushdie death threatsLawyer and activistPrashant Bhushan recently held guilty of contempt of court by the Supreme Court of India for two of his tweetsand fined Re 1 as punishmentalso called Twitterrsquos action ldquooutrageousrdquo ldquoOutrageousTwitter suspended account of Journalist Salil Tripathi chair PEN Internationalrsquos Writers in Prison One of his tweets reported as offensive was a video of Tripathi performing a poem he had written for motheron the demolition of Babri Masjid Bhushan tweetedOutrageousTwitter suspended account of Journalist Salil Tripathi chair PEN Internationalrsquos Writers in Prison One of his tweets reported as ldquooffensiverdquo was a video of Tripathi performing a poem he had written for motheron the demolition of Babri Masjid httpstcoKeTDwyZvdRmdash Prashant Bhushan pbhushan1 December 7 2020Also ReadPrashant Bhushan pays Re 1 fine files review plea against convictionAuthor Aatish Taseer also expressed solidarity with Tripathi This is astonishing First Facebook now TwitterIndia What we need to ask ourselves is whether it is the express policy of US information companies to collude with authoritarian regimesmdashto behave abroad as they would never behave at home he tweeted Last year the Indian government had revoked Taseerrsquos Overseas Citizen of India OCI status claiming the author had hidden the fact that his father was Pakistani on his part Taseer the son of slain Pakistani politician Salmaan Taseer and Indian journalist Tavleen Singh said he was given just 24 hours to object as against the full 21 days that the rule mandatesCongress MPShashi Tharoortoo tweeted in support of Tripathi I canrsquot believe this How on earth could Twitter suspend the account of a highly respected writer author amp human rights activist Do their algorithms have no human being applying common sense before undertaking such actions SalilTripathiAuthor Amitav Ghosh was beyond astonished to know about the account suspension of the eminent journalistBeyond astonished to learn that Salil Tripathis Twitter account saliltripathi has been suspended Salil is an outstanding journalist writer and human rights activisthellip Ghosh tweetedHistorian and author William Dalrymple called Twitterrsquos move bizarre Why has saliltripathi the respected poet writer and chair of the PEN Writers in Prison committee had his Twitter account suspended Salil is a well known advocate of nonviolence and human rights Seems most bizarre Dalrymple tweetedJournalist Shekhar Gupta said the social media site should stop allowing anonymity and bots ldquoNothing on Salil Tripathi handle would justify blocking it If twitter has any interest in restoring civility it should stop allowing anonymity amp bots Both are used to spread lies amp hatredrdquo Gupta tweetedDelhibased novelist Nilanjana Roy hoped Tripathirsquos ldquovoice is restored soonrdquoldquoWhy has saliltripathis Twitter account been suspended Earlier today hed tweeted about the demolition of the babrimasjid expressing the continuing anguish many also feel mdash hope TwitterIndia will restore his voice soonestrdquo she tweetedAuthor Mira Kamdar also tweeted against Twitterrsquos action ldquoWhy is author PEN_int and human rights activist saliltripathis account still closed Twitterrdquo she tweetedFilmmaker Vivek Agnihotri also supported Tripathi Agnihotri tweeted If twitter goes on suspending and censoring handles like this soon it will become like Aastha Channel full of only GM and motivational posts I stand for FoE of saliltripathi and everyone else irrespective of their ideologyStory byline Chirantana Bhatt and Kartik BhardwajKeep scrolling to read more newsCatch up on all the latest Crime National International and Hatke news here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updates MidDay is now on Telegram Click here to join our channel middayinfomedialtd and stay updated with the latest news