Plea in SC to curb spread of fake news leading to social stigmatisation of certain communities

A PIL has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking directions to the Centre to issue guidelines to curb the spread of fake news leading to social stigmatisation, boycott of certain communities and communal disharmony in states and UTs at the time when the country is facing COVID-19 pandemic.

The plea filed by three lawyers referred to alleged discrimination of Muslims in the backdrop of fact that some persons hailing from Tablighi Jamaat have been found to be 'super spreaders' of novel coronavires in the country.

The plea, which made ministries of Health and Family Welfare and Home Affairs as parties, also alleged that citizens from north-eastern states have been discriminated against as they morphologically resemble natives of China, the country from where this deadly virus spread to the other parts of the world.

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“Viruses and bacteria do not discriminate, but society does. Societal structures shaped by oppressive structural forces of communalism, casteism, racism and patriarchy render certain sections vulnerable. The existing social schisms in society are widened during crisis situations like that of COVID-19 pandemic.

This renders the already vulnerable population of race, religious, caste and sexual minorities, etc to even greater threat of being socially boycotted and ostracised resulting in essential services including healthcare inaccessible to them,” said the plea filed by lawyers, Aanchal Singh, Disha Wadekar and Mohammad Wasim.

It said “schisms and disharmony” during trying times would weaken the possibility of a united battle against COVID-19.

“As Corona virus spread from Wuhan in China, associating people from north-eastern hill regions of India with Covid19 has become a common phenomena because of the morphological similarities of such Indian citizens to the Han Chinese, in that both belong to Tibeto-Burman ethnicity.

"Also, since the Tablighis form Nizamuddin Markaz turned out to be 'super-spreaders', incidents of fake news and hate messages leading to the maligning of Muslim community,” the plea said.

It has sought a direction to the Centre to take immediate steps to strictly implement the 'Addressing Social Stigma associate with COVID-19' advisory, issued by the health ministry, for preventing attacks, stigmatisation and boycott of members of certain communities.

It said the government be asked to “ensure nobody is denied access to food, water, healthcare, medicine and hygiene facilities” and guidelines be issued “to curb the spread of fake news leading to social stigmatisation, boycott of certain communities and communal disharmony.”

The plea said that the government be asked to advertise on multimedia platforms like television, radio, print media that the spread of novel COVID-19 cannot be attributed to any community and to make a call for social harmony and national integrity in these pressing times.

“It is to be noted that such super-spreader events have happened across all countries and within India and the phenomena is not community-specific, but the fake news and hate messages claiming so have reignited the prevalent biases and prejudices. Such racial and community profiling has led to hate and mental abuse with slurs,” it said.

The plea said that “the term 'social distancing' has a connotation of caste, untouchability and social boycott, especially in the case of India and it must urgently be replaced by 'physical distancing' or 'disease distancing'”.

Earlier, the top court, on April 13, had declined to pass any interim order on a separate plea of Muslim body Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind seeking to restrain a section of media from allegedly spreading bigotry and communal hatred by linking the spread of coronavirus with the recent Nizamuddin Markaz incident, saying it would "not gag the press".

The apex court had asked the Muslim body to implead the Press Council of India (PCI) as a party to the case.

The Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind had sought directions to the Centre to stop dissemination of "fake news" and take strict action against those responsible for it and had said that unfortunate incident of Tablighi Jamaat was being used to "demonise" and blame the entire Muslim community.

At least 9,000 people had participated in the religious gathering at Tablighi Jamaat's headquarters in Nizamuddin West last month and the congregation became a key source for the spread of COVID-19 in India as many of the participants had travelled to various parts of the country for missionary works.