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India student refuses to be 'anti-Pakistan' poster girl

No wonder we have people in America who call themselves survivalists and train themselves 14 hours a day in their bunkers of canned food.

Stop creating a Hoover out of straws and mud.

Who’s creating a Hoover out of straws and mud? It’s a fact the Indian government has gone all out to block number of Pakistani based social media accounts. Pakistani journalists have received emails asking them to not criticize India or its government. These are all facts and easily verifiable, and have been cover even by Indian media. Why are you in such denial mode?
 
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The Twitter account of an unofficial Pakistani defence blog is suspended after it doctored an image of an Indian student to portray her as someone who hated her country. Indian media swiftly hailed it as a "victory" against Pakistani propaganda, but the student, Kawalpreet Kaur, says she is uncomfortable with this narrative.

What did the tweets say?
The original tweet from Ms Kaur in June, featured her standing outside the 16 Century Jama Masjid in the capital Delhi, holding a placard that read: "I am a citizen of India and I stand with the secular values of our Constitution. I will write against communal mob lynching of Muslims in our country. #CitizensAgainstMobLynching."

Ms Kaur told the BBC that she had taken the picture in June as part of nationwide protests titled "not in my name" against rising attacks on Muslims and Dalits (formerly untouchables) by vigilante groups seeking to protect cows, which are sacred to Hindus.

The doctored image by Pakistan Defence saw the text on her sign changed to: "I am an Indian but I hate India, because India is a colonial entity that has occupied nations such as Nagas, Kashmiris, Manipuris, Hyderabad, Junagadh, Sikkim, Mizoram, Goa."

The accompanying tweet read: "Indians are finally realising the truth; their country is actually a colonialist entity."


Who are Pakistan Defence?
Pakistan Defence, which describes itself as a "one stop resource for Pakistan defence, strategic affairs, security issues, world defence and military affairs" is not officially affiliated to the Pakistan government.

However it is followed by many members of the military and Pakistani commentators and analysts believe it follows the agenda of the establishment. It is known for propagating extreme right-wing content, and has routinely targeted journalists and liberal voices in the country.


It did not respond to requests by the BBC for comment.

Even though its Twitter account has been suspended, Pakistan Defence is far from silenced. Its website is still active, as is its Facebook page, which has more than 8 million followers.

And although Pakistan Defence is not an official blog of the government, many were quick to draw comparisons to an embarrassing instance in September when Pakistan's permanent representative to the United Nations, Maleeha Lodhi, held up a photograph as proof of "Indian brutality" in Kashmir.

The image was really of a 17-year-old Palestinian girl, taken in Gaza in 2014 by award-winning photographer Heidi Levine.

Ms Kaur said she was alerted to the doctored image of her by a friend some hours after it had been tweeted out by Pakistan Defence.

"I saw that the handle was a verified account so I tweeted at them asking them to remove the tweet and apologise so that we could end the matter there. But they responded by retweeting my reply with the message that it was to alert Indians to what they have done with Kashmir, which was just absurd," she told the BBC.

Ms Kaur then appealed to people to report the account to Twitter, a call which was taken up in both India and Pakistan. Many Pakistanis, she added, had defended her even before she saw the doctored image.


The account was suspended on Saturday, creating headlines in Indian media outlets, many of whom mistakenly thought the account belonged to Pakistan's defence ministry.

What does Ms Kaur say?
Ms Kaur said she was relieved by the action, but had suddenly found herself the unwilling poster child for India's "triumph" against Pakistan. She made several appeals to people to not "make this an India-Pakistan war" and "sensationalise" the issue.

"The last thing I want is to be used as a pawn for spreading anti-India and anti-Pakistan sentiments," she wrote in a Facebook post shortly after.

What was more galling, she told the BBC, was the fact that the same picture had been doctored earlier by Indian right-wing groups.

"I made a complaint to the cyber security cell but no one even bothered to respond. What does this say then? That it's only not alright for me to be targeted by Pakistani right-wing accounts, but when it happens in India it's ok?"

She said that the coverage of the issue also ignored the fact that liberal voices in India were routinely targeted by government-affiliated right-wing organisations too.

"So many people are trolled and even death threats are issued against them. So much so, that many people choose to self-censor rather than criticise the government.

"I would like some accountability from my own country as well."

Provide the link and mention acurrate title.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-42081368

Don’t agree with you that Indian members should be allowed on this forum. I think it’s a serious miscalculation that only harms you guys in the long run.

But I agree with you that this block of the Pakistan defence twitter account was requested by the Indian government. Go back few pages, I posted link of Indian articles showing official request by the Indian government to block even PTI twitter account. It’s an all out war but Pakistanis are naively running around with funny notions.

Forum is for everyone.

The war that actually India is up-to, there are very few fighting back on social media etc per own. Not to mention the lack of vision in political lines that cannot proceed with such in return.
 
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The easiest way to take control of Twitter, among other social media platforms is economic and diplomatic success.

Literally, we become a stronger country, we get our own version of Twitter.

Either that or we make an alternative. Like China did.
 
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Who’s creating a Hoover out of straws and mud? It’s a fact the Indian government has gone all out to block number of Pakistani based social media accounts. Pakistani journalists have received emails asking them to not criticize India or its government. These are all facts and easily verifiable, and have been cover even by Indian media. Why are you in such denial mode?

You are too much involved in your own American politics to understand what goes on here in this part of the world.

If you replace Pakistani with American and Indian with Russian then it will be something newsworthy to an American. This happens daily and people just do not give much value to these 'requests' or 'blocking'.

Stop being a snowflake Edward
 
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Provide the link and mention acurrate title.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-42081368



Forum is for everyone.

The war that actually India is up-to, there are very few fighting back on social media etc per own. Not to mention the lack of vision in political lines that cannot proceed with such in return.

Your call. But I think Pakistanis need to realize the playing field is highly skewed.

Ultimately, Pakistanis need to put their petty beefs aside and start framing a cohesive and organized narrative. I was shocked at the lack of support on social media for what happened to this websites twitter handle. It shows the divisive nature of Pakistani society today. Ideally, even your government should be warning Twitter that Indian laws don’t apply to Pakistanis. Same way, Facebook was forced to change its stances wrt Pakistan and it’s laws.

Good luck!
 
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You are an Idiot. Period. There is nothing wrong with the title. Its a proper title. The content of the post was indeed "BBC article on defence.pk". Idiot. Period.
upload_2017-11-23_16-44-59.png


Who is proving himself STUBBORN IDIOT ....
 
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The easiest way to take control of Twitter, among other social media platforms is economic and diplomatic success.

Literally, we become a stronger country, we get our own version of Twitter.

Either that or we make an alternative. Like China did.

Not correct.

Pakistan is a 200 million plus market and Twitter needs new markets to penetrate. Especially, English speaking markets. After US, UK and India, Pakistan arguably has the largest English speaking population in the world and one of the biggest consumer markets. This all translates to ad revenue for social media. You will be a simpleton to ignore Pakistan’s significance when it comes to social media platforms.
 
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Not correct.

Pakistan is a 200 million plus market and Twitter needs new markets to penetrate. Especially, English speaking markets. After US, UK and India, Pakistan arguably has the largest English speaking population in the world and one of the biggest consumer markets. This all translates to ad revenue for social media. You will be a simpleton to ignore Pakistan’s significance when it comes to social media platforms.
And yet Facebook and Youtube did just that.

Ultimately, Pakistanis need to put their petty beefs aside and start framing a cohesive and organized narrative. I was shocked at the lack of support on social media for what happened to this websites twitter handle. It shows the divisive nature of Pakistani society today. Ideally, even your government should be warning Twitter that Indian laws don’t apply to Pakistanis. Same way, Facebook was forced to change its stances wrt Pakistan and it’s laws.
I agree, but I don't think Twitter is what we need to form a narrative on. There are much bigger matters where our "narrative" is either woefully inadequate or non-existent.
 
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Your call. But I think Pakistanis need to realize the playing field is highly skewed.

I know what do you want to say but here, things are bit different.

Ultimately, Pakistanis need to put their petty beefs aside and start framing a cohesive and organized narrative. I was shocked at the lack of support on social media for what happened to this websites twitter handle. It shows the divisive nature of Pakistani society today. Ideally, even your government should be warning Twitter that Indian laws don’t apply to Pakistanis. Same way, Facebook was forced to change its stances wrt Pakistan and it’s laws.

Good luck!

Thanks for the post. However, speaking of favour and support of defence.pk w.r.t. twitter issue, actually those who can put it more aggressively are the one that are facing courts and allegations currently and there is a brigade which always loves to bash or malign Pakistan's Institutes so not to expect much in this regard. However, people individually along with reputed names in social media world, stood with defence.pk and are still supporting. When it comes to narrative building in support of Pakistan and all to be at same page, actually we are handful of diverting yet pathetic political stand which is more committed to please their business friends than standing for Pakistan at large. The government you are referring to, is more or less nothing but committed to save a disqualified person and serve the family more than the country. To be honest, I personally if came to a point that I have to bow before political thugs for favour, don't think would do so as then again, I am compromising dignity and right stand for a favour and will have to kill myself to remain silence against injustice of the cult.
 
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And yet Facebook and Youtube did just that.


I agree, but I don't think Twitter is what we need to form a narrative on. There are much bigger matters where our "narrative" is either woefully inadequate or non-existent.

Facebook was blocked by your government at some point and Facebook ultimately sent a delegation to create a framework that ensured no Pakistani laws were being broken. They did not dodo out of their good heart. No one does that. It was a business decision.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...-after-blasphemy-death-sentence-idUSKBN19S2BF
 
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Facebook was blocked by your government at some point and Facebook ultimately sent a delegation to create a framework that ensured no Pakistani laws were being broken. They did not dodo out of their good heart. No one does that. It was a business decision.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...-after-blasphemy-death-sentence-idUSKBN19S2BF
Anti-Pakistan and blasphemous pages still run on Facebook Pakistan. Believe me, using Facebook from here, the ban is cosmetic
 
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Your call. But I think Pakistanis need to realize the playing field is highly skewed.

Ultimately, Pakistanis need to put their petty beefs aside and start framing a cohesive and organized narrative. I was shocked at the lack of support on social media for what happened to this websites twitter handle. It shows the divisive nature of Pakistani society today. Ideally, even your government should be warning Twitter that Indian laws don’t apply to Pakistanis. Same way, Facebook was forced to change its stances wrt Pakistan and it’s laws.

Good luck!

Don't confuse hateful Indians pretending to be Pakistanis with actual Pakistanis. Also, stop looking at social media as a gauge for who is supporting who. Social media can never provide an objective insight into a support base or who is right and who is wrong.

Frankly, we don't give a hoot about Twitter and FB. We use them to express our opinion. If Twitter, FB or the BBC can't digets our opinion they can screw themselves to put it mildly. It won't change our thinking one iota.

If anything, the BBC has done a huge favor by publishing the defence.pk story LOL Free media coverage for our cause. We don't mind the extra attention.

If anyone has the spine they are welcome and face us in a debate. If not, we appreciate the free coverage on BBC.
 
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The government you are referring to, is more or less nothing but committed to save a disqualified person and serve the family more than the country.
That is nonsense, there is no real reason to disqualify Nawaz and after this court case proves him innocent, he will be back as PM IN SHA ALLAH!

Don't confuse hateful Indians pretending to be Pakistanis with actusal Pakistanis.
Don't take my post as pro-India, Indians have zero aukat with their "requests"
 
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Anti-Pakistan and blasphemous pages still run on Facebook Pakistan. Believe me, using Facebook from here, the ban is cosmetic

Regardless, it shows the biggest social media platform was forced to reverse its earlier decision and bend to Pakistani laws, even if just verbally. Undermines the defeatist claim you made few posts ago.
 
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Regardless, it shows the biggest social media platform was forced to reverse its earlier decision and bend to Pakistani laws, even if just verbally. Undermines the defeatist claim you made few posts ago.
Except Facebook didn't bend to our laws completely. Regardless, I don't think India has much power either. In the end, way to really get power is for our own platform to be made and to eclipse twitter. That is true power.

Currently, in the end, all our data is still going to US government to use for whatever they want.
 
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