India Still Waiting on Shami Witness Evidence
Posted on Fri Jun 24, 2016 at 10:37:57 PM EST
Tags: Shami Witness, ISIS (all tags)
Mehdi Masroor Biswas, the prolific Tweeter, ISIS news disseminator and aggregator, aka @ShamiWitness, has been incarcerated in India since December, 2014. He wasn't charged until June, 2015. And he still hasn't been tried. In May, the Indian media reported his trial might begin in June. June is just about gone. What's the latest?
Despite claiming they had a good case, it appears India is struggling with proving the charges. India is just now seeking "letters rogatory" for Google and Facebook to provide information on Shami Witness' email accounts. (Here's a description of "letters rogatory"). India sought Google's help directly in November, 20015 and has yet to receive a response. Will Letters Rogatory make a difference?
Out of more than 100,000 tweets, police say they have found one in which he gave out information about an open border crossing between Turkey and Syria. I explained here in detail why I don't think that tweet shows criminal intent. [More...]
Several prominent analysts and researchers quoted him and followed him:
Free Shami Witness. He was an ISIS fanboy and a news disseminator and aggregator, not a terrorist. Shami Witness did not recruit for ISIS. He was not a member of ISIS. There's no indication he got his information from any official ISIS source. He was followed by many Western militants, researchers, analysts, journalists and bloggers because of his reputation as being knowledgeable and because (1) his English was very good and (2) he knew who to follow on Twitter to get and tweet out the news faster than most. There's no indication he was paid or compensated by ISIS.
Yes, he took ISIS' side in his tweets. But he also disagreed with them at times. Yes, he communicated with some British ISIS fighters and retweeted the accounts of ISIS fighters. Yes he is a propagandist of ISIS views.
But expressing one's support for an unpopular group one isn't a member of and hasn't provided tangible assistance to should not be a crime.
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