New Social Media Guidelines Violate Basic Fundamental Rights: Mehbooba

SRINAGAR: PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti on Saturday said the new social media guidelines for the Jammu and Kashmir government employees are in complete violation of the basic fundamental rights of people.

Taking to Twitter, Mehbooba wrote, “Whether it was blacklisting contractors & the social media gag to employees, a clear intimidation of dispossessing people in J&K of their livelihood has emerged. Authorities have become judge, jury & executioner in complete violation of the fundamental rights of people.”

Senior CPIM leader Muhammad Yousuf Tarigami also criticised the circular issued by the Government of Jammu and Kashmir regarding the use of social media by its employees stating that government cannot snatch the rights of employees guaranteed to them by the Constitution.

“Government employee is a citizen also and he has every right to exercise his freedom. A government employee can either support or oppose the government’s view and actions and depriving him of this right is against the law and the very principles of the Constitution,” Tarigami said.

Tarigami said that every criticism within the ambit of law and constitution is justified. “For this freedom and these rights, people have fought and now government can’t take these rights away from the citizens,” he said.

According to the new social media guidelines, no government employee shall, by any utterance, writing, or otherwise discuss or criticize in public or in any meeting of any association or body any policy pursued or action taken by the government nor shall he in any manner participate in any such discussion or criticism.