NEW DELHI: Indian police on Monday arrested the co-founder of a top fact-checking website who has been a vocal critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, his colleague said.
Mohammed Zubair was arrested in Delhi after being called in for questioning in an earlier case, said Pratik Sinha, who runs the Alt-News website together with Zubair.
Sinha said in a post on Twitter that his colleague was arrested illegally and without warning and was being held by police in Delhi.
Zubair has been one of the fiercest critics of Modi’s ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party and has frequently called out hate speech by Hindu fringe groups on the Internet.
He has faced several legal cases over the years which his supporters dismiss as politically motivated attempts to silence a critic.
Some local media reports linked Zubair’s arrest Monday to the recent controversy over incendiary remarks about Prophet Muhammad made by a BJP spokesperson, which sparked widespread global protests and outrage from the Islamic world.
Many Hindu nationalists in the last few weeks have drawn attention to past comments on social media made by Zubair and other Modi critics and demanded that he be prosecuted for hurting their religious feelings.
Most government critics however see Zubair’s arrest as part of a crackdown on free-speech and rights activists that India has seen since Modi’s ascent to power in May 2014.
On Saturday, police detained activist Teesta Setalvad who hails from Modi’s western home state of Gujarat. Setalvad has been campaigning to have Modi declared complicit in deadly sectarian riots 20 years ago.
Protests were held in several Indian cities on Monday with rights activists and free-speech organizations demanding Setalvad’s release and describing her detention as “politics of vengeance.”
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Delhi police arrest Muslim journalist over Twitter post
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Delhi police arrest Muslim journalist over Twitter post
- Mohammed Zubair, co-founder of top fact-checking website, is a vocal critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government
- He has faced several legal cases over the years which his supporters dismiss as politically motivated attempts to silence a critic
Fire breaks out in Seoul’s last-remaining shanty town
SEOUL: A fire on Friday in one of Seoul’s last-remaining shanty towns burned makeshift houses and forced dozens of residents to flee, but no casualties were immediately reported.
Much of the fire was under control about 6 1/2 hours after the blaze broke out in Guryong village in southern Seoul, fire officials said.
Local fire officer Jeong Gwang-hun told a televised briefing that rescuers were searching each house in the burned area to look for possible victims.
More than 1,200 personnel including firefighters and police officers were deployed to the scene, he said, adding the cause of the fire was under investigation.
The hillside village has occasionally had fires over the years, a vulnerability that observers say is linked to its tightly packed homes built with materials that easily burn.
The village is located near some of Seoul’s most expensive neighborhoods, with towering high-rise apartments and lavish shopping districts, and has long been a symbol of South Korea’s stark income inequalities.
The village was formed in the 1980s as a settlement for people who were evicted from their original neighborhoods under massive house clearings and redevelopment projects.
Hundreds of thousands of people in the city were removed from their homes in slums and low-income settlements during those years, a process then military-backed leaders saw as crucial in beautifying the city for foreign visitors ahead of the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games.
Much of the fire was under control about 6 1/2 hours after the blaze broke out in Guryong village in southern Seoul, fire officials said.
Local fire officer Jeong Gwang-hun told a televised briefing that rescuers were searching each house in the burned area to look for possible victims.
More than 1,200 personnel including firefighters and police officers were deployed to the scene, he said, adding the cause of the fire was under investigation.
The hillside village has occasionally had fires over the years, a vulnerability that observers say is linked to its tightly packed homes built with materials that easily burn.
The village is located near some of Seoul’s most expensive neighborhoods, with towering high-rise apartments and lavish shopping districts, and has long been a symbol of South Korea’s stark income inequalities.
The village was formed in the 1980s as a settlement for people who were evicted from their original neighborhoods under massive house clearings and redevelopment projects.
Hundreds of thousands of people in the city were removed from their homes in slums and low-income settlements during those years, a process then military-backed leaders saw as crucial in beautifying the city for foreign visitors ahead of the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games.
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