India blocks Middle East Eye journalist's X account
India has blocked the X account of a Middle East Eye journalist who has been reporting on India-Israel ties.
Azad Essa, a US-based, South African journalist and senior reporter with MEE, was informed on 20 February by email that the Indian government has moved to ban his account in the country.
"In the interest of transparency, we are writing to inform you that X has received a blocking order from the Indian Ministry of Information and Broadcasting citing Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000, regarding your X account: @azadessa," the letter said.
"Indian law obligates X to withhold access to this content in India; however, the content remains available elsewhere."
The email, which had no name attached and came from "X Support", said Essa should contest the ban via court relief in India.
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"While X is not able to provide legal advice, we want you to have an opportunity to take action to protect your interests. This may include seeking legal counsel and challenging the blocking order in court, contacting relevant civil society organizations, voluntarily deleting the content (if applicable), or finding some other resolution," the email read.
Essa said he has not been provided with an explanation as to why his account has been withheld in India.
"Given that much of my work focuses on India’s ties with Israel, I can only assume that the restriction is based on this work. It is obviously concerning but emblematic of how journalism is being curtailed in India," Essa said in a written statement.
"But this incident once more shows how complicit X is in restricting journalism while promoting itself as a bastion of free speech," he added.
Repeat pattern
Just six months ago, the Elon Musk-owned social media platform had expressed concern about censorship in India after the government asked for the Reuters news agency to be blocked on X.
“After public outcry, the government requested X to unblock @Reuters and @ReutersWorld," X said within a day of blocking the accounts.
The Indian Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology later denied that it requested bans on international news organisations.
In March 2025, X sued the Indian government for its attempt to allow an untold number of government officials to make takedown requests to the site.
By May, when India-Pakistan tensions boiled over, X received 8,000 takedown requests from the Indian government, including prominent Pakistani journalists.
As India bolstered its ties with Israel - while many in the international community sought to create some measure of distance because of the genocide in Gaza - the anti-Muslim rhetoric from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's right-wing Hindu nationalist party and the extermination rhetoric from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's far-right coalition drew strength from one another.
"Over the past five years, I have faced sustained harassment from sections of India’s right wing over my reporting on India–Israel relations and my work on Kashmir," Essa said, who in 2023 published his second book, titled Hostile Homelands: The New Alliance Between India and Israel.
"Alongside this, there have been threats, coordinated disinformation campaigns to try and misrepresent my journalism and discredit me personally."
On Monday, Netanyahu said that Modi is set to tour Israel in an upcoming visit meant to tighten the “fabric of relations” between Israel and India.
Netanyahu said that in this framework of cooperation, he seeks to build a “hexagon of alliances around or within the Middle East”, which also includes India, to counter the “radical” Shia and Sunni axes.
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