India's Festival of Lights Overcome with Shadows as Women Arrested Following Diwali

By

Today marks exactly one week from the kickoff of Diwali, a five-day Hindu festival, celebrated by families performing traditional activities together in their homes. But at a time when the country should be rejoicing, it looks like the flickering of lights was abruptly put out with the arrests of two women.

According to The Seattle Times, with India's financial capital closed for the weekend funeral of a politician, a woman posted on her personal Facebook page that the closures in Mumbai were because of “fear, not due to respect," which then prompted her friend to click the “like” button in agreement.

Because of these actions, both women were taken into police custody.

The Maharashtra state government is currently being accused of pursuing these citizens in blatant disregard of their right to believe and say whatever they think or feel – also known as freedom of expression in India. While the death of the political figure Bal Thackeray was something most were mourning of, police stated they made these arrests as a way to nip any violent actions in the bud before they started.

"We are living in a democracy, not a fascist dictatorship," Markandey Katju, a former Supreme Court justice who is now leading the Press Council of India, declared in a letter written to the chief minister of Maharashtra.

 Since the arrests, both women have not only withdrew their comments, but sincerely apologized for their actions. They have subsequently been released on bail.

Shaheen Dhada, the 21-year-old who inked the initial comment on the social media platform, said her arrest was “unfair.”

Clearly terrified by her arrest and the attack on her uncle's clinic, Dhada told NDTV television she would never again make comments on a social networking site. And both women are now too scared to ever utilize Facebook again.

 India's Information Technology Minister Kapil Sibal added, "Freedom of speech is a very important right, and we need to protect it," Sibal told reporters. He said the government would reexamine the laws governing information technology to prevent its misuse by the police.

This particular case pays head to the much bigger issue of people throughout the world voicing their opinions or thoughts via social media and then being persecuted for those actions. Though the line blurs between how far is too far in stating what you want, shouldn’t everyone be able to voice their opinion without having to then live in fear of their actions coming back to haunt them?

Social media is not always used as a way to go after brave individuals but is continuing to be leveraged to actually arrest real criminals as well. In fact, just last month the Philadelphia Police Department revealed it had officially nabbed its 100th criminal via social media initiatives. Hoping to serve as a model for other law enforcement organizations, the organization is in strong favor of turning to YouTube, Facebook and Twitter to put bad guys behind bars where they belong.




Edited by Braden Becker
Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. [Free eNews Subscription]

TechZone360 Web Editor

SHARE THIS ARTICLE
Related Articles

Can Science Outsmart Deepfake Deceivers? Klick Labs Proposes an Emerging Solution

By: Alex Passett    3/25/2024

Researchers at Klick Labs were able to identify audio deepfakes from authentic audio recordings via new vocal biomarker technology (alongside AI model…

Read More

Top 5 Best Ways to Integrate Technology for Successful Project-Based Learning

By: Contributing Writer    3/19/2024

Project-based learning, also popularly known as the PBL curriculum, emphasizes using and integrating technology with classroom teaching. This approach…

Read More

How to Protect Your Website From LDAP Injection Attacks

By: Contributing Writer    3/12/2024

Prevent LDAP injection attacks with regular testing, limiting access privileges, sanitizing user input, and applying the proper encoding functions.

Read More

Azure Cost Optimization: 5 Things You Can Do to Save on Azure

By: Contributing Writer    3/7/2024

Azure cost optimization is the process of managing and reducing the overall cost of using Azure. It involves understanding the resources you're using,…

Read More

Massive Meta Apps and Services Outage Impacts Users Worldwide

By: Alex Passett    3/5/2024

Meta's suite of apps and services are experiencing major global outages on Super Tuesday 2024.

Read More