Hyderabad: Amnesty India come in support of the social media news handle TeluguScribe, against which the Telangana Police’s Intelligence Wing has written to X Corp seeking information on its account registration, usage logs and activity details.
In its post on X on Friday, April 24, Amnesty India stated, “Using an anti-terror law like UAPA to seek account details of a social media handle @TeluguScribe, which has been critical of the government, sets a dangerous precedent. This is not law enforcement; it’s legal overreach with a chilling effect on dissents.”
Amnesty India said that even if the government found the content on the X handle offensive, anti-terror frameworks were not the answer.
“Even under UAPA’s overbroad definitions of “terrorist act” and “unlawful activity,” the notice neither identifies the specific content nor how it meets that threshold. This is the latest in India’s long pattern of abusing anti-terror laws to criminalize freedom of expression,” Amnesty India said.
The group also said that journalists, activists and critics were too often framed as security threats, undermining the due process and deliberately eroding the line between dissent and crime.
“TeluguScribe has been critical of the Telangana government. Freedom of expression includes the right to offend, critique, and challenge power. Authorities must stop weaponizing anti-terror law to curb this essential right,” Amnesty demanded.
A day earlier, the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) also condemned the Telangana Police’s invocation of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) against TeluguScribe, as an ex-facie illegal abuse of an anti-terror statute.
IFF stated on its X handle that the UAPA was enacted to address threats to the sovereignty and integrity of India and not to police political commentary or journalism critical of state governments.
“Using the UAPA to demand subscriber information about a handle engaged in lawful public interest reporting (even if alleged, or demonstrably biased, or worse, even false) is a grave overreach that weaponises extraordinary criminal law to chill constitutionally protected speech under Article 19(1)(a),” IFF warned.
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