JNU Censors WiFi for 24 Hours Barring Access To News Portals

JNU students allege they are unable to access any news portal’s YouTube channel, other than Zee News, over WiFi.

JNU students allege they cannot access any videos relating to JNU student leaders Kanhaiya Kumar, Shehla Rashid and politicians Rahul Gandhi, Arvind Kejriwal, Mamata Banerjee.

(Photo Courtesy: Reuters)

JNU has always been the hub for student controversies, voicing diverse opinions, standing up for fundamental rights and political awareness. Most of these loud voices have been seen as dissent against the ruling BJP, anti-national, and provocative, and the government has tried its best to draw a circle around the campus and contain it.

But they haven’t been very successful. The chants have got louder, the slogans more hard-hitting and the human chains longer. Now, another attempt has been made to curb their freedom of expression.

A few students at Jawaharlal Nehru University, including the student union, alleged that for over 24 hours they were unable to access any news portal’s YouTube channel, other than that of Zee News, over the university Wi-Fi. Now it has been restored.

On Friday night, the first information was revealed that there was some difficulty in accessing certain YouTube channels. After that it was discovered that this is happening only after accessing the university via WiFi. Censorship has been removed from WiFi on Sunday morning. At the moment, all sites and videos can be viewed. The decision to remove censorship was taken after the pressure of the students. 

on Zoya Khan, Vice President of the JNU Student U

The news came to the limelight on Saturday night after a few former JNU students tweeted about it.

The Rector-III, RP Singh, however, told the Hindustan Times said that “there is no change in the URL filtering policy of JNU.”

“Along with several other news portals, the AISA (All India Students’ Association) YouTube Channel has also been blocked by the JNU administration through JNU’s Wi-Fi,” said Sucheta De, the national president of AISA.

Some students also claim searching for ‘Una incident,’ ‘The Wire Hindi’ and other news portals is showing the message – “some results have been removed because Restricted Mode is enabled by your network administrator.”

Ironically, the search for Narendra Modi is showing almost all videos available in the search list. This latest attempt by JNU administration to censor and restrict access is a dangerous trend. We immediately ask the administration to clear the reasons for such censoring AIB, viral videos and others too have been blocked

Statement by <a href="http://www.hindustantimes.com/delhi-news/access-to-youtube-channels-of-news-portals-blocked-on-varsity-wifi-say-jnu-students/story-QNJZ6p9EMRbWRLypOsGKkN.html">AISA</a> (All India Students’ Association)

However, some other students claim there is no censorship.