India Trains Its Sights on Dissent in Chhattisgarh – Snooping on Civil Society

28/10/2022

Voelkerrechtsblog / by Allison West

Development in the form of profit-driven resource exploitation ventures in India’s central state of Chhattisgarh, led by corporations and facilitated by the state, have wreaked havoc on the lives and livelihoods of the region’s indigenous Adivasi peoples. In the face of widespread dispossession, corporate land grabs, environmental degradation and militarized policing in Chhattisgarh, Adivasi activists and organized civil society play a vital role in monitoring, documenting and challenging ongoing human rights violations on the ground…
In 2020, Amnesty International and Citizen Lab uncovered a coordinated spyware campaign targeting nine human rights defenders in India, including several active in Chhattisgarh. Between January and October 2019, the targets received spearphishing emails with malicious links that, if opened, would have installed NetWire, a commercially manufactured Windows spyware that monitors a user’s actions and communications..
The common link between the human rights defenders targeted in the NetWire attack seemed to be a record of speaking out on behalf of those imprisoned in the 2018 Bhima Koregaon Case.
Read more

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Report Release: In the Name of Development – Indigenous Rights Violations and Shrinking Space in Chhattisgarh

03/11/2022

By India Justice Project & ECCHR

The report presents insights into the ongoing assault by the Indian state and powerful corporations on the indigenous peoples of the country through a case study of Chhattisgarh. In particular, the report highlights the legal and institutional means through which powerful state, military and corporate actors appropriate land and shrink space for Adivasi rights and resistance in Chhattisgarh.
Read full report (PDF, 72 pages)

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Also read:
● DISINHERITING ADIVASIS – THE GADCHIROLI GAME PLAN (KAFILA / June 2018)
● Mining In Gadchiroli – Building A Castle Of Injustices (Countercurrents / June 2017)