On Saturday, journalist and former Amnesty India chief Aakar Patel found his Twitter account unblocked in India. Announcing his comeback the activist whose account was recently "withheld in India" shared Twitter's "Notice of Unwithholding".
Patel's Twitter account had, until some time ago, been "withheld in India". This occurred soon after he took to Twitter calling for protests in the manner of the US protests over George Floyd's death.
"At this time, we are no longer withholding access in India to your account," read the notice that Patel captioned with a simple "hello".
George Floyd was a black man in the US, who died while a white police officer knelt on his neck, and he kept saying that he couldn't breathe. His demise has sparked global outrage, and there have been large-scale, at times violent protests in the US.
Reacting to the same, Patel had said in a Twitter post that "we need protests like these".
"From Dalits and Muslims and Adivasis. And the poor. And women. World will notice. Protest is a craft,” he had tweeted.
Soon after, however, a complaint was filed against him. Earlier in June, the Bengaluru police filed a complain against the activist over his post. As The Free Press Journal's Shankar Raj reported earlier, the FIR was registered under Section 153 (wantonly giving provocation with intent to cause riot), Section 117 (abetting commission of offence by the public or by more than ten persons) and Section 505 (1)B of the IPC, which deals with statements with intent to cause mischief, or likely to cause, fear or alarm to the public, or to any section of the public whereby any person may be induced to commit an offence against the State or against the public tranquility.
More recently, Patel's Twitter account had been "withheld in India".
(To receive our E-paper on whatsapp daily, please click here. We permit sharing of the paper's PDF on WhatsApp and other social media platforms.)
