On December 2, Twitter user MrSinha_ got an email from Twitter that they have received a complaint against one of his posts on their platform. In the email, Twitter said that Govt. of West Bengal, Office of the Assistant Commissioner of Police(III), Special Task Force, Kolkata had sent the request to take action against a particular tweet as it “violates the LAW of India.”
Though Twitter did not take any action on the tweet but mentioned that it was their obligation in the interest of transparency to inform Sinha about the complaint. The email was in a standardised format that it sends to every user against whom it receives such a complaint. In the email, the social media portal advised the user, in this case, Sinha, to take appropriate action in the matter to protect ‘his own interests’ that includes seeking advice from a legal counsel and challenging the request in court.
Tweet with photographs of vandalised Hindu temples in Bangladesh
The complaint refers to a tweet by Sinha that he published in August 2021. On August 8, 2021, Sinha had published two photographs on Twitter in which idols of Hindu Gods and Goddesses could be seen destroyed in a temple in Bangladesh. In the tweet, Sinha wrote, “This is what happens when Hindus become a minority. Hindu’s houses & Temples attacked & idols destroyed in Bangladesh. This news won’t attract “seculars/liberals”. Nobody is going to write letters to UN. No minority under attack type movements.”
OpIndia reverse-searched the images and found multiple media outlets that used the same pictures with reports suggesting that the incident took place in Bangladesh. In an August 9, 2021 report, Free Press Journal published a report titled “Watch Video: After Pakistan, now miscreants attack Hindu temples in Bangladesh” that had the same image that Sinha used.
There was also a YouTube video embedded. According to FPJ, the incident occurred in Shiali village in Rupsha Upazila of Bangladesh’s Khulna district after an altercation between Hindus and Muslims. FPJ quoted Dhaka Tribune and reported, “the miscreants first attacked the Shiali Mahasmashan temple. They vandalised the idols in the temple and the crematorium.
From there, they went to the Shiali Purbapara area, where they vandalised the idols of Hindu gods and goddesses in Hari Mandir, Durga Mandir and the Govinda Mandir.” We also found the Dhaka Tribune report that used the same but digitally enhanced photograph of the damaged idols that Sinha has used in the tweet, proving that the incident was from Bangladesh itself. Both images that Sinha posted were in Dhaka Tribune’s report. It was also covered by Tribune, The Week, the Commune and several other media outlets. Ten people were arrested in the case.
The same report was covered by OpIndia as well which can be read here.
Interestingly, the complaint was not filed by Bangladesh Police but by West Bengal Police despite the fact that the incident was not from the Indian state.
Twitter has a history of silencing Twitter handles that talk about attacks on Hindus
This is not the first time Twitter silenced an account raising voice for Hindus in Bangladesh. Recently, Twitter suspended the account of ‘Stories of Bengali Hindus’ for sharing ignored stories of the trauma faced by persecuted Bengali Hindus citing “violating rules against ban evasion” as the reason. Dr Das, the founder of the website, wrote that they received an email from Twitter stating that we were suspended in view of “ban evasion”. He asked the microblogging site to provide more explanation for the suspension. Interestingly, while Twitter said that it had suspended the account in view of “ban evasion”, it provided no explanation as to which ban had the account exactly evaded.
Earlier Twitter has singled out a non-left account and suspended it without providing any reasonable explanation for the same. In September this year, the Popular Twitter account ‘Princess Woke Liberal (@workingboxwali)’ was censored and suspended by the micro-blogging site for questioning the promotion of Islamist Rana Ayyub on the Elle Magazine. Last year, popular non-left account @effucktivehumor was suspended indefinitely for a tweet that condemned the Paris beheading. Following the suspension, it was communicated to the user that his account was suspended for violating Twitter rules on Hateful conduct although it was not pointed out precisely how the tweet condemning a terror attack violated the social media giant’s policy towards hate speech.
