Indian Bloggers’ Protest

Indian bloggers are planning to move the Supreme Court against the government’s move to jam blog sites in the wake of the July 11 Mumbai blasts on suspicion that terrorists might be using them to exchange messages, reports the Hindustan Times.

“We believe it is undemocratic and against the right to freedom of expression. Though the action is undemocratic and unconstitutional, we will use constitutional means to fight it,” Kajal Basu, a web journalist, said Wednesday.

The journalist also said there were several websites that could still be used to access blogs and “hardcore” bloggers would use them to continue blogging.

Meanwhile, India’s telecom department officials informed that the government was not planning to block any more blog sites. Some of the blog sites that have been jammed would continue to be blocked for some more days,” said an official.

The official said the government jammed around 22 blog sites after intelligence agencies suspected that terrorists might be using Internet blogs to exchange messages.”

Says The Tribune: “Indian bloggers are relatively new. If you type the words “India blogsâ€? on Google blog search, you will find 1,83,338 results. Of these, not more than top 50 are commonly visited. Most blogs start with great intentions, but are seen by only a few. Launching a blog is like casting a pebble in the vast cyber-blog ocean and hoping to see results.

Indian bloggers have, however, done a singular job during the tsunami and the Mumbai blasts by acting as an alternative means of communication and giving valuable information to the public. Many, like mumbaihelp.blogspot.com, had responded to the recent horror in Mumbai also by listing phone numbers of hospitals where victims were being taken, and the like.

It now transpires that the government had listed 18 blogs that posted extremist views. In a ham-handed attempt to block these 18, all blogs of such common sites as Blogger, Geocities and Typepad, have been blocked too. Blogs are one of the ways in which the people communicate. Should mobile phones, too, be blocked because terrorists certainly use these? What about mail? What about e-mail?”