A non-profit organisation called Sikhs for Justice has filed a lawsuit against social networking major Facebook for blocking its page in India, reports PCWorld. The page was blocked in early May. Sikhs for Justice primarily ran a campaign for a referendum seeking an independent Sikh country in Punjab through its Facebook page. It has also filed several petitions in Indian and US courts in regards to the 1984 riots. It's not clear if Facebook blocked the page suo moto or under orders from the Indian government. The PCWorld report mentions that the group has charged Facebook with entering “a pattern of civil rights violation and blatant discriminatory conduct” by blocking its page across India. Sikhs for Justice has asked the US court to grant a permanent injunction on any further blocking of its page. It has also asked for access to any correspondence Facebook might have had with the Indian government regarding this block. The group is also seeking monetary damages and other relief. A Facebook spokesperson told MediaNama that this lawsuit is without merit and that they'll defend themselves vigorously. Interestingly, Facebook restricted access to 5,832 pieces of content in India during the second half of 2014 (July-Dec 2014), the highest among all the countries in the world. At the time, Facebook had said that most of the blocked content was requested to be blocked primarily by law enforcement agencies and the India Computer Emergency Response Team within the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology. The reasons for these takedowns were vague, all…
