Advocacy group Human Rights Watch said that Indian authorities should cease arbitrary restrictions of the country’s Internet and telecommunications networks and added that state governments have imposed 20 shutdowns in 2017. "Shutdowns in response to campaigns on social media and mobile mass messaging applications spreading false and even incendiary information have frequently been disproportionate," the group said. Typically, mobile Internet bans are enforced under the Section 144 of the CrPC (Code of Criminal Procedure) where it targets unlawful assembly. Section 144 of the CrPC can usually be invoked by a district magistrate or the collector. To curb incidents of riots or mobs, magistrates or district collectors cut mobile Internet to stop the spread of rumours on social media. The number of Internet blocks has increased dramatically with the Supreme Court’s ruling which upheld the districts and states’ right to ban mobile Internet services for maintaining law and order in February last year. Pressure is mounting from advocacy groups on the responses from state governments. The Centre for Communication Governance at NLU Delhi counts more than 40 instances in two years where the internet was suspended for emergencies. In May, two United Nations human rights experts had called on India to restore internet and social media networks in Jammu and Kashmir, in a statement released today. While Internet access is working now in Jammu and Kashmir, the Indian government banned 22 social media sites/apps on 17th of April 2017. The two experts, David Kaye and Michael Forst, have said that “The scope of these restrictions has a significantly disproportionate…
