Centre asks Twitter to remove ‘Islamophobic’ tweet by BJP MP Tejasvi Surya

Team Udayavani, May 9, 2020, 5:26 PM IST

New Delhi: The Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) has asked Twitter to remove a controversial post by Bengaluru BJP MP Tejaswi Surya from its platform. Apart from Surya’s tweet the goverment has listed 120 other tweets to be removed from the social media site for their incendiary content.

The particular tweet from Surya in the year 2015 read, “In short: true, terror has no religion. But the terrorist definitely has a religion, and in most cases, it’s Islam.”

The 2015 tweet started surfacing recently amid the row over a previous Islamophobic tweet by Surya where he speaks against Arab women. His tweet had read, “95% Arab women have never had an orgasm in the last few hundred years. Every mother has produced kids as act of sex and not love.”

This tweet was deleted after Kuwaiti lawyer and Director of International Human Rights Mejbel Al Sharika, Dubai-based businesswoman Noora AlGhurair and even Sharjah royal family member Princess Hend Al Qassimi raised objections.

The request was submitted on April 28, 2020, citing Section 69A of the Information Technology (IT) Act which provides for blocking public access to information when the “the Central Government or any of its officer specially authorised by it in this behalf is satisfied that it is necessary or expedient so to do, in the interest of sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, the security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States or public order or for preventing incitement to the commission of any cognizable offense relating to above.”