Mohammed Zubair (journalist)

Mohammed Zubair (born 1983) is an Indian journalist, fact-checker and the co-founder of Alt News, an Indian non-profit fact-checking website.

In 2022, Zubair was arrested by Delhi Police over a 2018 Tweet for allegedly "insulting Hindu religious beliefs" and incarcerated for a month.

His detention raised further concerns about the state of India's press freedom under Narendra Modi's premiership and was widely criticized by journalistic bodies, human rights organizations and the political opposition who allege that the arrest was an act of revenge against his role in Alt News' work of combating disinformation.

Zubair was born into a Muslim family on 29 December 1983 in Bangalore (now Bengaluru), the capital of Karnataka, India.

He graduated from the M.S. Ramaiah Institute of Technology, and spent over ten years working as a software engineer for Nokia.

In 2017, Zubair and fellow former software engineer Pratik Sinha founded Alt News.

Zubair only assisted Sinha in running the site for about a year while continuing to work for Nokia.

He finally left Nokia in September 2018 to become a full-time employee of Alt News.

In 2018, Zubair shared a satirical Tweet with a screenshot from the 1983 Indian comedy film Kissi Se Na Kehna by Hrishikesh Mukherjee.

The screenshot from the film showed a signboard with the name "Honeymoon Hotel" repainted to "Hanuman Hotel".

On 19 June 2022, an anonymous Twitter user named "Hanuman Bhakt @balajikijaiin" quoted Zubair's Tweet from four years earlier, and asked Delhi Police to take action against him, calling it a "direct insult" to Hindus.

On 27 June, Zubair was arrested by Delhi Police after being accused of "hurting religious sentiments".

The charges under Section 295A of the Indian Penal Code and section 67 of the IT Act were pressed against Zubair.

On December 16, 2019, he was appointed to the board of directors of the Pravda Media Foundation, which operates Alt News.

In 2020, Pratik Sinha alleged that Zubair is being targeted by right wing government for his work after a number of first information reports (FIR) were lodged against him.

On 10 June 2021, Zubair received a notice from Twitter alerting him that Twitter had been approached by Indian law officials regarding a Tweet Zubair had tweeted in March 2021, which Indian authorities claimed breached Indian laws.

According to Time magazine, Zubair and his Alt News co-founder, Pratik Sinha, were among the favourites to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022.

The 2022 Muhammad remarks controversy began on 27 May 2022, when Nupur Sharma, a spokeswoman of India's ruling party, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), made controversial remarks about the Islamic prophet Muhammad, on a Times Now television channel debate on the Gyanvapi Mosque dispute.

The comments were in reference to Muhammad and the alleged age of his third wife, Aisha, at the time of their marriage and the consummation of the marriage.

A day later, the video clip of her comments was shared by Zubair on social media.

Sharma later alleged that it was a "heavily edited and selected video", which was denied by Pratik Sinha, who stated that it was unedited and also shared a longer clip which allegedly showed the same remarks.

Times Now deleted the video of the programme from its YouTube channel the next day.

Nonetheless, Sharma defended her comments and accused Zubair of "heavily [editing]" the clip; she further claimed to have been receiving rape and death threats as a result.

Alt News denied any responsibility for the reaction from the viewers after watching the video clip.

Deutsche Welle reported that Zubair had helped bring international attention to the controversial remarks.

A few days later, he was arrested in other cases.

On 27 May 2022, Zubair published a series of tweets slamming prime-time debates on Indian television channels during the ongoing controversy regarding the Gyanvapi mosque.

Zubair said that these debates "have become a platform to encourage hate mongers to speak ill about other religions".

He added that the Indian TV anchors were doing a better job of speaking against a religion than the hatemongers Yati Narasinghanand Saraswati or Mahant Bajrang Muni or Anand Swaroop.

The extremist Hindutva leaders—Mahant Bajrang Muni 'Udasin,' Yati Narsinghanand, and Anand Swarup—had been recorded on camera using hate speech, instigating violence against Muslims, and making rape threats against Muslim women.

An FIR was filed in Khairabad, Sitapur, Uttar Pradesh in early June in response to a complaint by a Sitapur leader of a Hindu group.

The complainant accused Zubair of "outraging religious feelings" of three seers by labeling them "hatemongers" on Twitter.

In mid-June, Zubair posted e-mails from the Twitter service informing him that one of his tweets criticising the comments by Yati Narsinghanand Giri the leader of a Hindu group were being 'withheld' in India under the country's IT laws at the request of law enforcement authorities.

'Withholding' a Tweet meant that it would no longer be visible in India.

Twitter said this was done "in order to comply with Twitter's obligations under India's local laws".

Later two more of Zubair's tweets were withheld, they were about the provocative comments made by a Hindu priest Mahant Bajrang Muni threatening to kidnap and rape Muslim women.

On 14 June, Zubair challenged the FIR and pleaded in the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court that his Tweet did not insult or attempt to insult religious beliefs and the case against him had been lodged to 'harass' him.

After hearing a plea on the case, the High Court refused to quash the FIR and said that the case needed investigation and adjudication by a trial court.

In mid-July, Zubair challenged the order of Allahabad High Court in the Supreme Court of India.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta argued against the plea and admitted "We accept that the speeches made by Yati Narsinghanand were hate speech for which he was arrested and put in jail".