Separatists dodge curbs by using cyberspace

Srinagar: As the government has opted for keeping a tight rein on Kashmiri separatists, the latter have turned to the Internet to reach out to the world with their concerns and demands, outmaneuvering the security curbs imposed on their movement and to thwart their attempts at holding rallies and protests on their home-turf.

Recently, the Joint Resistance Leadership (JRL), an alliance of key separatist leaders Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Muhammad Yasin Malik, announced to observe a “human rights week” from December 3 by holding candlelight vigils and rallies to highlight the "grave" human rights violations in the state, coinciding with the World Human Rights Day which is observed on December 10.

But before the separatists could pick their way through, the police cracked down on them. While second-rung leaders and other key activists were taken into “preventive custody” by the police “to avoid breach of peace, the Mirwaiz was placed under house arrest. The authorities had already curtailed the movement of Mr Geelani by placing him under house arrest whereas Mr Malik was earlier detained by the police to prevent him from campaigning for boycott of rural local body elections.

The Mirwaiz, however, outwitted the authorities by quickly turning to the Internet and social media to take his political war to cyberspace. He often turns to the Internet to communicate with the outside world and put across his concerns and demands. This time he sought to inform the outside world through his series of tweets about how he is being denied a political space and how “even organising peaceful events to register protest against the grave abuses taking place here such as candlelight vigils becomes an eye sore for the perpetrators”.  

His pleas seeking an end to the alleged human rights violations and the complain “they scuttle even our peaceful programmes” landed, besides others, right in the PC of UN Secretary General António Guterres within no time from his besieged home in Srinagar. The Mirwaiz in his tweets also reiterated the demand of right to self determination for the people of Jammu and Kashmir.

Mr Malik also often turns to the Internet to communicate with the outside world and puts across his political word using social media tools. He rarely tweets but uses Facebook frequently to reach out to people around the world.

Mr Geelani and other separatist leaders also use social media  daily  to turn to the outside world with the tales of Kashmiri sufferings” and the people back home with their political messages.

Different separatist organisations and leaders have had their websites for some years. They also put videos of their speeches and other activities on YouTube.com.

Politicians and parties belonging to other schools of thought, including mainstream parties like National Conference (NC), Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) and Peoples' Conference and their senior leaders are not lagging behind. Omar Abdullah, NC vice president and former chief minister, is known to be one of the country’s most twitter-savvy politicians and has three million followers. He also joined the bloggers world a few years ago by starting his own blog on the party website www.jknc.org.

He and his party are also available on Facebook. PDP leader Mehbooba Mufti too has lately increased her presence on Twitter.com to reach out to many potential supporters and keep up with her constituency. PDP is equally active both on Facebook and Twitter.