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Journalist Burned Alive In India For Facebook Post Exposing Corruption
arnott writes: Journalist Jagendra Singh used a Facebook page to expose corruption in the state of Uttar Pradesh in India. Though he posted under a pseudonym, he was quickly found and burned alive by police, allegedly on the order of the minister accused. He died a week later from his injuries. This is not the first case of a journalist being attacked in this state. Amnesty International had urged the local government to launch an official investigation, and now five policemen and a politician have been brought up on murder charges. What can Facebook or other companies do to help these journalists report on corruption in a safe manner?
Indias legal excecutive is basically "Judge Dredd" in real-life. Courts are so behind, murder investigations and convictions can take up to 25 years before even starting. The police solve this on their own to maintain order by staging "encounters" for people who've killed more than once. They basically find you, arrest you for something petty they can pin on you and then shoot you for resisting/trying to flee.
With such factually absolute powers for the police, they're bound to turn corrupt.
I'd say it's no surprise that in such a system an exposure of police corruption get's you killed mafia style.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Seems pretty obvious too. Facebook is a social media platform with policies specifically stating they want people to use their real identities. Facebook is not a whistle-blowing platform. Isn't that what wiki-leaks is for?
Should add... if you actually read the article, the "pseudonym" he was posting under was nothing more than the title of "Shahjahanpur (City) News" with his photograph right there on it. He just setup a second Facebook account act as a news feed.