Statement by The Wire’s EditorsLast night, more than 12-15 hours after The Wire‘s website was blocked in India on government orders – and some eight hours after we formally wrote to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) and Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) seeking an explanation for this – we received a written ‘explanation’ from the MIB.The ministry’s email, which was received at 9:41 pm on May 9, said that thewire.in was blocked based on blocking request it had received regarding the article on the webpage https://m.thewire.in/article/security/cnn-french-official-iaf-rafale-downed-by-pakistan.The letter said that thewire.in was blocked due to the technical limitation that in the case of https websites, only full domains can be blocked, and sub-pages cannot be blocked. It added that The Wire was requested to take appropriate action regarding that content and “inform the action taken, which would enable the Ministry to unblock the website.”The letter also said The Wire would be given an opportunity give its “comments/clarifications” before an Inter-Departmental Committee “constituted under the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 to consider the request for blocking.”While fully reserving its right to challenge this unconstitutional attack on freedom of press, The Wire’s founding editor, Siddharth Varadarajan, informed MIB at 10:40 pm on May 9 that it had removed the story/webpage from public view:Dear Sir,We have received your letter in response to our request for information about the blocking of our website.I am constrained to note that under the IT Act, the procedure your ministry should have followed was to first issue notice about the news story in question, then give The Wire a chance to present its views before the inter departmental committee and only then, in the event that the IDC insists on the story’s deletion, could you have taken the extreme step of blocking our website if we remained non-compliant.Even in the exercise of emergency powers, the first step is a direction to the concerned party under the relevant rules. The MIB omitted to even respond to our query for seven hours after we wrote to it.The impugned story was published at 0347 on May 8 and the information it reported about was widely available at least 12 hours earlier, from CNN, whose story has remained widely available in India since then. I fail to see why the government wants our story deleted and treated it as such a matter of emergency more than 24 hours after publication that no notice was even served to us and our entire website blocked.Since our priority is to have The Wire unblocked, we have no option but to comply with this unfair demand, while reserving our rights under the Constitution of India to seek appropriate remedies.You may treat this email as formal intimation that we have removed the story you indicated.It is worth reminding ourselves that today the Supreme Court emphasised the need for debates in the public and the press and held that both the judiciary and the media are the foundational pillars of democracy.I look forward to presenting The Wire’s case before the IDC tomorrow.Shortly after we sent this reply, MIB officials informed us that orders had been issued to Internet Service Providers to unblock the site. However, despite the fact that more than 12 hours have passed since then, readers on various networks in different parts of the country are still unable to access The Wire‘s website.It is also surprising that the government’s request for us to act on a particular news story was not made before the decision was taken to peremptorily block The Wire‘s website.We will present our views on the take down order against the individual webpage – which was a news story covering what CNN had reported about Pakistan’s claim to have downed an Indian Rafale – as well as the blocking of our entire site for a whole day, at the IDC meeting that has been convened for 2.30 pm today.We note that CNN’s original story and all other international media reporting of its contents remains fully accessible in India, and that the websites of these news platforms have not been blocked in the way The Wire’s was.The Wire remains committed to fulfilling its role as a provider of clear, accurate and crucial news, information and analysis to all its readers in India and the world.