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ExploreFree Speech TrackerTrack Violations across Categories, States & Years

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The Free Speech Tracker is a database that records free speech violations in India across various categories. Tracked violations can be searched across categories, states or years. Categories covered include Arrests, Attacks, Censorship, Harassment, Internet Control, Killings, Lawfare, Policies/Regulations, and Threats.

Please visit the About Us page for a guide to free speech violations tracked by FSC,

Numbers are liable to change and violations may be reclassified in case of discrepancies in reporting or updates due to developments in ongoing cases. In case of updates or corrections and to report free speech violations, please contact us.

[Note: The data included currently is for 2025 as updates for previous years is under process. For details of previous years, please go to the Reports section.]

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Censorship

Delhi High Court orders Sci-Hub to be blocked in India

State: Applicable Across India

Year: 2025

Date: August 23, 2025

Censorship – Academia

The Delhi High Court has reportedly ordered Sci-Hub, Libgen and other shadow libraries to be banned in India. The Court has ordered the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to take necessary steps to immediately block these websites within the next 24 hours.

The case against shadow libraries was filed in 2020 by a group of publishers including Elsevier, Wiley Periodicals and the American Chemical Society. They alleged that Libgen and Sci-Hub were infringing copyright and “substantially indulged in online piracy.”

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Censorship

Senior journalist Ruben Banerjee’s YouTube channel, Mu Ruben Kahuchhi (I am Ruben speaking), suddenly removed on 6 August 2025

State: Applicable Across India

Year: 2025

Date: August 6, 2025

Censorship – News Media/Documentaries

The Editors Guild of India (EGI) strongly condemned the sudden removal of senior journalist Ruben Banerjee’s YouTube channel, Mu Ruben Kahuchhi (I am Ruben speaking), stating that it raises “serious questions of freedom of expression, platform power, and the lack of clarity in digital governance”.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, the Guild said Banerjee’s channel was taken down without any prior warning, strike, or show-cause notice.

Banerjee, who also serves as general secretary of the Guild, launched the Odia-language public journalism platform in September 2024 to cover schoolteachers’ issues, women’s self-help groups, and Odisha’s state politics. Since its launch, the channel has gained over 33,000 organic subscribers.

“YouTube hasn’t communicated the exact nature of the breach,” Banerjee told Newslaundry.

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Lawfare

Assam Police File Sedition Case Against Journalist Abhisar Sharma Over Video Criticising CM

State: Assam

Year: 2025

Date: August 21, 2025

Lawfare – National Security (Journalists)

Continuing its vindictive action against journalists, the Assam police on Thursday registered an FIR against Delhi-based journalist Abhisar Sharma under multiple sections of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita (BNS), including section 152.

The FIR is based on a complaint filed by a Guwahati resident, one Alok Baruah, over a video where Sharma refers to Guwahati high court judge Justice Sanjay Kumar Medhi’s searing remarks on the Assam government’s tribal land transfer to a private company. Sharma also criticises Assam chief minister Hemant Biswa Sarma in the video, accusing him of relying on communal hate and violence to further his politics.

In the video, posted on Sharma’s YouTube channel on August 18, Sharma says, “When the [chief minister] spreads poison and talks about Hindu-Muslim, it distracts the public from issues like these.”

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Censorship

Maharashtra Asks Union Govt to Stop the Release of ‘Khalid Ka Shivaji’

State: Applicable Across India

Year: 2025

Date: August 7, 2025

Censorship – The Arts

“The government has taken a serious note of the complaints received about the movie. There is a demand to ban the movie,” a Maharashtra minister said.

Bowing down to pressure from right-wing groups, the Maharashtra government has written to the Union government asking to stop the release of Marathi film Khalid ka Shivaji.

The film’s trailer shows a young boy named Khalid who takes inspiration from Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj.

Maharashtra minister Ashish Shelar, while speaking against the film that screened at Cannes earlier this year, said that his government would not tolerate the “perversion of history”, the Hindu reported.

“The government has taken a serious note of the complaints received about the movie. There is a demand to ban the movie. The Central Board of Film Certification comes under the jurisdiction of the Union government. We want to examine how the movie received Censor Board certification – if the committee had studied the movie properly. We also want to know how the movie was selected for the Cannes Film Festival, and if there is any mischief in it. We are going to probe all of it,” Shelar said.

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Censorship

St Xavier’s College (Mumbai) cancels annual Stan Swamy Memorial Lecture after ABVP protest

State: Maharashtra

Year: 2025

Date: August 6, 2025

Censorship – Academia

The lecture, organised by the college’s department of inter-religious studies, was to have been delivered by Fr Prem Xalxo on “Migration for Livelihood: Hope amidst miseries.”

St Xavier’s College has cancelled its annual Stan Swamy Memorial Lecture scheduled for August 9 pm following protest from the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Sangh (ABVP), an RSS affiliated.

The lecture, organised by the college’s department of inter-religious studies, was to have been delivered by Fr Prem Xalxo on “Migration for Livelihood: Hope amidst miseries.”

The ABVP told the college principal in a strongly worded letter that Fr Stanley was a prime accused in the Bhima Koregaon criminal case and was arrested under UAPA, an anti-terrorist law. Prashant Mali, ABVP secretary, Mumbai, alleged in the letter that Fr Stanley was linked to the CPI (Maoist).

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Lawfare

Shwetha Menon booked under obscenity charges ahead of AMMA elections

State: Kerala

Year: 2025

Date: August 6, 2025

Lawfare – Others

Actor Shwetha Menon has been booked by the Ernakulam Central Police on non-bailable charges under multiple sections of law, including Section 67A of the Information Technology Act, for allegedly earning money through films and advertisements containing sexually explicit content. The case was registered following directions from the Ernakulam Chief Judicial Magistrate Court, based on a complaint by social activist Martin Menachery.

Martin accused Shwetha of involvement in the trade and circulation of pornographic material online, citing scenes from her past work in films such as ‘Paleri Manikyam: Oru Pathirakolapathakathinte Katha’, ‘Rathinirvedam’ and ‘Kalimannu’, as well as an advertisement for Kamasutra condoms. He alleged that such visuals were being widely shared on adult websites and social media platforms, and that Shwetha had profited from their circulation. In addition to the IT Act, she faces charges under Sections 3 and 5 of the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act. Police have confirmed that an FIR has been registered and an investigation is underway.

Interestingly, this development comes just as Shwetha prepares to contest for the post of president in the Association of Malayalam Movie Artists (AMMA), following the resignation of actor Mohanlal in the wake of the Justice Hema Committee report last year. Of the six individuals who had filed nominations for the role, four have withdrawn, leaving Shwetha and actor Devan in the running. The election is scheduled to take place on August 15.

If elected, Shwetha Menon would make history as the first woman to lead the Association of Malayalam Movie Artists (AMMA) since its inception in 1994.

Shwetha, a two-time state award-winning actor, was last seen in ‘Jankar’.

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Censorship

Assam Tribune rejects column critical of BJP & Himanta, asks veteran journalist Patricia Mukhim to ‘focus only on Meghalaya’

State: Assam

Year: 2025

Date: August 6, 2025

Censorship – News Media/Documentaries

Within hours of sending in her bimonthly column to The Assam Tribune on the violation of human rights and ‘dehumanization’ of Bengali-speaking Muslims in Assam, veteran journalist Patricia Mukhim was told by the paper on August 6 that the management had decided not to carry the piece. She was also instructed to concentrate only on Meghalaya.

Patricia, who has been the editor of The Shillong Times for almost two decades now, started contributing to the Assam Tribune, one of the largest-selling English dailies in the northeast, around 2014. On Wednesday, she sent in her piece to the Tribune which was to be published the next day, August 7. Soon after being informed about the rejection, the Padma Shri-winning journalist decided to cut off her ties with The Assam Tribune and not contribute to the paper henceforth. This, she announced in a Facebook post.

Expressing her disappointment at the development, the Meghalaya-based journalist wrote on the social media platform, “To be told what to write on and how to write are the marks of an authoritarian regime. It’s better to be a free spirit than be tied in knots and have your thoughts imprisoned.”

 

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Attacks

YouTubers assaulted in Dharmasthala, police lathicharge to control tension

State: Karnataka

Year: 2025

Date: August 6, 2025

Attacks – Journalists

Ajay Anchan who runs the Kudla Rampage YouTube channel, Abhishek of United Media and Santhosh of Sanchari Studio were assaulted on the Dharmasthala-Pangala Road in Dharmasthala around 5 pm.

Tension prevailed in Dharmasthala on Wednesday, August 6, after three YouTubers were attacked, allegedly by a mob who accused them of insulting the Dharmasthala temple, its Dharmadhikari D Veerendra Heggade and his brother D Harshendra Kumar.

Ajay Anchan who runs the Kudla Rampage YouTube channel, Abhishek of United Media and Santhosh of Sanchari Studio were assaulted on the Dharmasthala-Pangala Road in Dharmasthala around 5 pm.

The visuals from the incident show the cameras of the YouTubers broken. In another video, a group of around six unidentified men can be heard hurling abuses in Tulu, the local language, demanding, “What video are you making? What exactly are you trying to say about the Kshetra (Dharmasthala)?” One of the men then grabs Abhishek’s camera.

Ajay Anchan told TNM that he and his cameraperson Suhan had gone to interview Rajat Kishan G, a contestant on Bigg Boss Kannada, who had come to meet Sowjanya’s family. Sowjanya was raped and murdered in October 2012 and her killers have not been caught.

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Attacks

Journalist Balvinder Kumar Bhalla was brutally assaulted after he questioned two police officials

State: Punjab

Year: 2025

Date: August 1, 2025

Attack – Journalists

Journalist Balvinder Kumar Bhalla was brutally assaulted on the road in Batala on August 1, 2025, between 6:00/6:30 PM, after he questioned two police officials. The attackers – Sub Inspectors Mandeep Singh and Surjit Kumar of Bathinda Police now face an FIR under BNS Sections 115(2), 118(1), and 3(5), registered at Batala Civil Lines Police Station. Both police officers are residents of Bathinda.

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Internet Control

25 OTT platforms, including Ullu and ALTT, blocked for streaming obscene, pornographic content

State: Applicable Across India

Year: 2025

Date: July 25, 2025

OTT App Banned: The government has explicitly directed Internet Service Providers to disable or remove public access to these websites within India.

The government has explicitly directed Internet Service Providers to disable or remove public access to these websites within India.

OTT App Banned in India: The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B) has directed that public access to 25 OTT platforms, including Ullu, ALTT, and Desiflix, be disabled for streaming obscene, and at times, pornographic content, sources in the government said. The direction to block the websites and apps of these 25 OTT platforms came on July 23, they added.

The action was reportedly taken in consultation with the ministries of home affairs and electronics and information technology, the department of legal affairs, industry bodies FICCI and CII, as well as experts working in the domain of women and child rights.

As part of the directive, content from 26 websites and 14 apps will be blocked under the provisions of the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the IT Rules, 2021. These apps were streaming vulgar content from these OTT platforms, sources said.

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