Do you expect India's Indymedia to not reflect its contributors? Do you think Indymedia UK can force them to defer to you as Lord High Censor? Please don't expect Indymedia UK to edit your local media. That's your job. Go do it.

If you want Indymedia to reflect the views of fanatics, then shame on you. India is in the grip of Nazism and we all must fear and oppose the pogrom on Muslims. That means stopping the hate campaign, which has been allowed on Indymedia India.

As for helping, I have continually asked India IMC to let me help out and join the collective to counter the death threats and calls for rapes, but have had no response. So I am hoping other indymedia groups can urge the end of violence on indymedia. Their lack of interest perhaps shows their attitude towards racism and violence - they couldn't care less.

"Indymedia supports genocide" changed to "Fascists on Indymedia India are supporting genocide" as this is due to certain people who are spamming and trolling Indymedia India, and NOT due to the entire IMC movement.

I regret the change in the title. The global Indymedia "process" group and other collectives, as well as IMC India, have been told time and time again about the incitement to murder and rape on IMC India and NOTHING has happened. My last email to the global process group went unanswered.

I have also repeated my enthusiasm to help with the editorial work and have gathered together a small group of people who are also want to help out with India IMC. But no-one replies to our emails. There is no accountability to the IMC users, no transparency and certainly no democracy. So what is the purpose of India Indymedia? It seems it is just a platform for those calling for genocide and the IMC network are quite happy about this. I really don't think they understand the situation in India and the very real threats progressive activists are faced with on a daily basis from religious zealots.

All I have from Indymedia is excuses about free speech and I am very frustrated. So what about the freedom of those individuals named as targets for rape and murder on India Indymedia? What about the freedom of Muslims and other minorities targetted by those spamming India Indymedia? What about fighting fascism?

If you care about India Indymedia and want to do something, join the Renew India Indymedia group at:  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/indiaindymedia/ Something needs to happen urgently!

Is all this because the initials IMC stand for the Indian Muslim Council?

Will a Committee based in Ireland be any better than the present editors who wrote:
"Due to mainly human resource constraints, an editorial team for the FEATURES column of the India IMC site is yet been constituted. In keeping with the ethos of the IMC movement it would be preferable that volunteers based in India take up the primary responsibility for this, and for the overall maintainance of the India IMC site. Of course, volunteers based in the U.S and elsewhere will be glad to provide the necessary back-up support related to technical/administrative issues, and coordination with other IMC sites. If you are based in India, and are willing to accept some of this responsibility (or have any other questions or comments) please drop a line to  imc-india@lists.indymedia.org"

Let us see a copy of, and the date of, the email Ganeshmukti sent to them before rushing to judgement and shooting fascists.

What is Ganeshmukti's definition of a fascist? Are the people in indymedia.india accused of following the ideas in the book "The ABC of Economics"? What is the proof?

Darker Cloud:
I have an Irish email because I signed up to yahoo while in Ireland. I am actually based in Kolkata, India. I wish to be a part of India IMC, like many others, but have had no response. It seems India IMC is a closed clique You can see my latest emails to India IMC collective on  http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-india/2003-August/date.html (I am listed under my pseudonym Montgomery Cheddar).

My definition of a fascist is someone who encourages hate and violence against those of a different race, religion or background to their own. Below is a list of articles on India Indymedia which were written by fascists but never hidden:

Threats of rape and murder
 http://india.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=6725
 http://india.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=6957&group=webcast

Anti-Muslim hate
 http://india.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=7013&group=webcast
 http://india.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=6961&group=webcast

If you still don't believe me and don't think this is an issue, then I am surprised by your complacency.

This guy Ganesh is such a bullshitter. A while ago he was ranting on about rape threats and was posting links that contained no threats of any kind. Then - wow! - there they are... what a coincidence Ganesh!

My suspicion is that you're using the name Ganesh to pass yourself off as a Hindu. Then you post threatening messages in other names. Then you moan about your messages on every Indymedia site you can find, hoping someone will be overawed at your righteousness and censor India Indymedia to *your liking*.

Plenty of pro-jihadi messages pop up on that site without you getting your big fucking panties in a big sticky wad.

I dunno but i think if you examine any indymedia newswire you'd find at least four examples of similar nazi crap - that's the price for having an open newswire that allows as many people as possible to contribute while running an experiment in participatory media.

That said indymedia in its open form may not be the best medium for such a project in difficult conflict zones or in countries with low internet access, and as such will be pretty distorted.

No answers really, just as long as people keep discussing and developing then we can all learn better.

Let me show you extracts from the articles I listed above:
"The followers of Mohomad (Piss be upon him) a child raper who raped a 9 year old girl Aisha. The religion Islam teaches them to kill women and children in the name of jihad so they can get 72 virgins to have sex after they die......"

"Angana and Smita Narula are bitches who sleep with pakistani mother fuckers, these bitches should be stoned to death as well as Sonia Gandhi and uska randi pariwaar"

"Simia Narula of South Asian Human Rights watch should see -- DEATH TO ALL SOUTH ASIAN BASTARDS , DEATH TO SMITA NARULA, ANGANA RANDI, BIJU MATTHEW , VIJAY PRASAD .. ALL FOIL madarchoioods "

"SABRANG bastards and bitches are the most cunning and low life pigs. These scum bags do not have heart that cry for fellow Indians who are dying in the terrorist acts of bastard Indian muslims who support pakistan and Pakistan agents. These sabrang bastards deserve to stone to death asper their mohammad bulla lover shariyat."

"Muslims should quit India"

"FUC SECULAR , COMMUNIST < PROGRESSIVE MADARCHOODS , rape smita narula , angana , shalini, akhila and also wives and daughters of vijay prasad, biju madarchoods"

"SABRANG, anti hindu anti BHARAT, sulla lover, lallu kojja mulla kojja where are all these bastards????? are they celebrating with low life scum bags of Congress??? where is that slut Italy bitch????? those who claim to be Indians and who support pakistan and anti Bharat elements deserve to die, they should be kicked out of this coutry. BASTARDS WHERE ARE YOU??? I WISH THESE ANTI INDIA BASTARDS ARE DEAD INTHOSE BLASTS. THEY ARE SUCH A LOW LIFE PIGS WHO DOES NOT HAVE ANY ETHICS AND MORALS."

Of course, you would not recognise these as intolerant, racist statment, which explains a lot about where you stand.

You accuse me of putting these up to undermine Indymedia - well I haven't. But even if you still believe this, these statements should not remain on Indymedia. They are incitement to genocide and appear daily on India IMC. No rational person would support the right to publish such rubbish, so I can only conclude that India IMC has been taken over by Hindutva elements. This is underlined by the fact that they no longer allow people to join their "collective".

These are just a small number of examples. There is evidence of hate every day and nothing is "hidden" by the collective, which is a closed and secretive group and does not allow new members. If you want, I can send you hundreds of such examples. There is even a "shooting gallery" of progressive activists which keeps coming up on the newswire  http://india.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=7036 and which at least one of those featured has complained to the IMC India - nothing has happened.

India is not like England, where everyone yawns and dozes and smiles when things go wrong. India at the moment is violent and dangerous and Indymedia is fanning the flames of communal violence by failing to stop these incitements to rape and murder.

The first quotation, regarding Mohammed's preference for having sexual intercourse with pre-pubescent girls, may be a little colourfully put but is otherwise an entirely accurate rendition. The question of whether Islam teaches its followers to kill women and children is debatable - the killing of non-believers who refuse to convert is stated as a holy duty at points in the Qu'ran, although the Qu'ran is, as is the case with all holy books, laughably non-sensical, ridiculous, contradictory drivel. Essentially, however, the Qu'ran teaches Muslims to kill only in the sense that the Bible mandates that no-one should ever trim their sideburns. I fail to see why any Indymedia site should mandate that its readers and contributors bow down before organisations of control founded on preposterous superstitions - like Islam, Christianity or Hinduism.

The other comments are obviously unreasonable to an outrageous degree - but let's face it, what kind of exposure do they really get? UK Indymedia gets less exposure than many one man blog sites and I doubt India Indymedia fares much better. India IMC could certainly do more to take offensive material off the front page (not withstanding comments precious religious types might deem rude) but unfortunately such comments are a risk with the IMC sites, which are essentially open post weblogs.

Referring to the exchanges of comments between me and Ganesh (post originating from Ganesh)....

You (Ganesh) say few comments above : 'India is not like England'

See! you got the point.
These are unique situations.
India has to develop in terms of greater IT access for reasonable participation in open forums like the IMC newswires to become meaningful.