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Protest to seek justice for Stan Swamy / Remembering the revolutionary who challenged everything

Protest to seek justice for Stan Swamy / Remembering the revolutionary who challenged everything

Ranchi, July 23

Pan India agitations protesting ‘institutional murder’ of Fr Stan

24/07/2021

The Telegraph / by Animesh Bisoee

The protests are part of a series of public observances called by rights groups, trade unions, Christian organisations, Left parties and their student and youth wings
Human rights activists, civil society groups, mass organisations and trade union members staged agitations in Jharkhand, Delhi and other parts of the country on Friday in protest against the “institutional murder” of Father Stan Swamy.
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Delhi, July 23

Kolkata, July 23

In Jharkhand, Stan Swamy’s Friends and Colleagues Vow to Keep His Fight Alive

22/07/2021

The Wire / by Santosh K. Kiro

A fortnight after tribal rights activist Father Stan Swamy’s death, his friends and those he worked were are still in mourning – and also determined to take forward his work.
On July 18, Swamy’s name was engraved on a stone in Bagaicha, the centre he had developed in Ranchi two decades ago to fight for the tribal cause. Every other day, different tribal communities from across Jharkhand are arranging meetings to pay tribute to the activist.
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OPEN NATIONAL CALL: DEFEND RIGHT TO DISSENT

July 2021

Issued by several organizations across the country

Join National Action to Defend Democracy:
Defend Right to Dissent,
Repeal Sedition Law,
UAPA and Repressive State Laws,
Restore Right to Bail

Dear Friends,
The Institutional murder of the 84-year-old Jesuit priest Father Stan Swamy in judicial custody on 5th July 2021 has brought home to all of us the urgency of the need to take up the defence of democracy against repressive laws.
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Remembering Stan Swamy, the revolutionary who challenged everything – including the Church

21/07/2021

Scroll.in / by Jyoti Bahen Urumpil, The India Forum

He was a fiery, ruthless messiah for the oppressed and exploited.
Stan Swamy’s mortal remains have been placed reverently with proper dedication. We all know that his spirit and commitment will live forever in the whole world. Swamy was gifted with a good intellect and a warm, tender heart that could almost burst out of anger for justice.
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Judicial inquiry into Stan Swamy’s death yet to be initiated: State in Bombay HC

Judicial inquiry into Stan Swamy’s death yet to be initiated: State in Bombay HC

+++ The Court posted the case for further hearing on August 4, 2021 +++

Judicial inquiry into Stan Swamy’s death yet to be initiated: State in Bombay HC

23/07/2021

The Indian Express / by Sadaf Modak

Oral comments made on Swamy, withdrawn by the court after ASG submitted they were ‘twisted’ on social media and by the press.
The Maharashtra government informed the Bombay High Court on Friday that a judicial magisterial inquiry into the death of Father Stan Swamy is yet to be initiated.
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Bombay High Court Withdraws Oral Praise For Late Father Stan Swamy After NIA Objection

23/07/2021

Live Law / by Sharmeen Hakim

The Bombay High Court on Friday withdrew its oral statements in praise of late tribal rights activist -Father Stan Swamy and his work – after the National Investigation Agency raised objections during his bail hearing posthumously.
Justice SS Shinde, however, said that even judges are human beings and the news of Father Swamy’s death on July 5 was sudden. Moreover, the court had added a rider that it wasn’t making any comment on Father Swamy’s incarceration or arrest under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
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Webinar: Human Rights Defenders in India: Stories from the Trenches

Webinar: Human Rights Defenders in India: Stories from the Trenches

By International Solidarity for Academic Freedom in India (InSAF India)

Saturday, 31 July 2021
7 pm (IST)
Register here

We mourn the institutional murder of Father Stan Swamy that has fully exposed to the world the machinations of Indian state agencies and a compromised judiciary.

Dear friends,
As a growing number of human rights defenders are being incarcerated using charges of sedition, terrorism and anti-national activities, other in the movements and causes they have stood for and struggled with through constitutional means, now, in turn, are fighting for their release. It is clear the state is determined to silence these activists by any means necessary, framing them in false cases and denying them bail repeatedly.
– Why was Father Stan and his centre in Ranchi, Jharkhand (Bagaicha) such a threat to the state?
– How are corporations/commercial interests complicit with the state in trying to suppress the movements of such grassroots organizations and eliminate these activists?
– How does the Indian legal system enable those in power to rule by law instead of governing under a rule of law?
Through this webinar we hope to shine a light on how grassroots organizations and activists have stood up to the carceral state and its allied interests, and what support the international community can provide.
…

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Open National Call: Defend Right to Dissent, Repeal Sedition Law, UAPA and Repressive State Laws

Open National Call: Defend Right to Dissent, Repeal Sedition Law, UAPA and Repressive State Laws

Call issued by several organizations across the country

Join National Action to Defend Democracy:

Defend Right to Dissent,

Repeal Sedition Law,

UAPA and Repressive State Laws,

Restore Right to Bail

Dear Friends,

The Institutional murder of the 84-year-old Jesuit priest Father Stan Swamy in judicial custody on 5th July 2021 has brought home to all of us the urgency of the need to take up the defence of democracy against repressive laws. Father Stan, who spent a lifetime working with Adivasis in Jharkhand in defence of their rights, was arrested in the Bhima Koregaon case even though he had no connection with it and the police did not require him for any investigation. Father Stan died waiting for a chance to clear his name. In denying Fr Stan bail, the NIA judge, D. E. Kothalikar argued that “the collective interest of the community” outweighed Fr. Stan’s right to personal liberty. His death should shake the conscience of the nation and the judiciary as it “brings to an end a stark tale of injustice – one that has left the highest institutions of India’s justice system diminished.” But even after Father Stan’s death, the same court denied bail to Anand Teltumbde, another member of the BK-16, as the advocates, artists, journalists and intellectuals who have been imprisoned under the Bhima Koregaon case are called. …

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Parliament panel to hold meeting on data security / Shah alleged report was released to cause disruption

Parliament panel to hold meeting on data security / Shah alleged report was released to cause disruption

Parliament panel to hold meeting on data security and privacy on July 28

21/07/2021

Scroll.in / by Scroll Staff

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology will question officials from the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology on July 28 in connection with reports about the illegal surveillance using Pegasus spyware, ANI reported.
… In November 2019, BJP MPs opposed when the standing committee wanted to discuss the matter, according to The Hindu. In a later meeting, the panel met 17 individuals representing a platform called the “Pegasus Targeted Persons”. They included human rights activist Bela Bhatia, Dalit activist and Bhima Koregaon case accused Anand Teltumbde, Jagdalpur Legal Aid group member Shalini Gera, Chattisgarh-based civil rights activist Alok Shukla and human rights activist Jagdish Meshram.
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Report on Pegasus ‘by the disrupters for the obstructers’, says Home Minister Amit Shah

19/07/2021

Scroll.in / by Scroll Staff

Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Monday dismissed an investigation pointing to the use of the Pegasus hacking software to spy on journalists, activists and Opposition leaders in India, calling it “a report by the disrupters for the obstructers”.
… On Sunday, The Wire revealed the names of dozens of journalists and activists on the list, including its own founder-editors Siddharth Vardarajan and MK Venu, The Hindu’s Vijaita Singh, the Hindustan Times’ Shishir Gupta, as well as scholars and activists on the Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners and relatives, lawyers and friends of those arrested in the Bhima Koregaon case and the accused themselves.
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After Pegasus and Arsenal Reports, Can Bhima Koregaon Case Still Stand?

After Pegasus and Arsenal Reports, Can Bhima Koregaon Case Still Stand?

The Quint / by Anand Venkatanarayanan

An expert decodes Arsenal report—on planting evidence in activists’ devices—& its significance after Pegasus leaks.
In the light of Pegasus leaks, suggesting that Indian government used a spyware to snoop on politicians, constitutional appointees, journalists, and activists, the Bhima Koregaon case deserves fresh and sharp attention.
The Bhima Koregaon case (BKC) is a unique case in many aspects, but one aspect stands out – the planting of evidence through the use of malware as detailed by the Arsenal reports (Report one, two, three).
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Also read: Leaked Data Shows Surveillance Net in Elgar Parishad Case May Have Crossed a Line (The Wire, July 18, 2021)

Leaked Data Shows Surveillance Net in Elgar Parishad Case May Have Crossed a Line

Leaked Data Shows Surveillance Net in Elgar Parishad Case May Have Crossed a Line

Leaked Data Shows Surveillance Net in Elgar Parishad Case May Have Crossed a Line

18/07/2021

The Wire / Sukanya Shantha

The families of activists figure on a leaked list of numbers that included some selected for surveillance by a client of Israel’s NSO Group.
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Government Cites Old RTI Response To Deny Pegasus Link, Says Media Didn’t Do Due Diligence

18/07/2021

The Wire / by The Wire Staff

The ministry of electronics and information technology pointed to a response to an RTI from October 2019 in which the home ministry did not deny or confirm purchasing the Pegasus spyware.
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Forensic Methodology Report: How to catch NSO Group’s Pegasus

18/07/2021

By Amnesty International

NSO Group claims that its Pegasus spyware is only used to “investigate terrorism and crime”  and “leaves no traces whatsoever”. This Forensic Methodology Report shows that neither of these statements are true. This report accompanies the release of the Pegasus Project, a collaborative investigation that involves more than 80 journalists from 17 media organizations in 10 countries coordinated by Forbidden Stories with technical support of Amnesty International’s Security Lab.
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For India’s undertrials, the legal process is the punishment

For India’s undertrials, the legal process is the punishment


Drawing by Arun Ferreira

The Indian Express / by Nandita Rao

After the death of Stan Swamy, questions about the conditions of jails and treatment of the incarcerated have been raised anew
Michel Foucault, in Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, wrote, “punishments like imprisonment – mere loss of liberty – has never functioned without a certain additional element of punishment that certainly concerns the body itself: rationing of food, sexual deprivation, corporal punishment, solitary confinement… There remains, therefore, a trace of ‘torture’ in the modern mechanisms of criminal justice.”
The National Crime Records Bureau data reports the death of over 1,800 prisoners in the year 2018. An estimated 70 per cent of prison inmates are undertrials, so it can be safely assumed that a large percentage of those dying in prison are not convicted of any offence.
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Jharkhand CM Pays Tributes To Stan Swamy / Death in custody of Stan Swamy is devastating: UN

Jharkhand CM Pays Tributes To Stan Swamy / Death in custody of Stan Swamy is devastating: UN


Surrey (Canada), July 2021

Stan Swamy’s Death Will Forever Remain a Stain on India’s Human Rights Record: UN Expert

15/07/2021

The Wire / by The Wire Staff

Swamy’s case should remind all states that human rights defenders and all those detained without sufficient legal basis, should be released, said Mary Lawlor, UN special rapporteur on human rights defenders.
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India: Death in custody of priest Stan Swamy is devastating – UN expert (Press Release)

15/07/2021

United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders / by Mary Lawlor

The death in custody of Catholic priest Stan Swamy, a renowned human rights and social justice advocate for over four decades, will forever remain a stain on India’s human rights record, a UN human rights expert said today.
I was devastated to hear that Father Stan, a Jesuit priest who had dedicated much of his life to defending the rights of indigenous peoples and the Adivasi minority, died in custody on July 5, despite many requests for his release as his health deteriorated in prison,” she said.
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Stan Swamy’s death: Left parties stage protest outside Raj Bhavan in Ranchi

15/07/2021

ANI / by ANI

Over a week since Stan Swamy passed away in judicial custody in a Mumbai hospital after being denied bail, Left parties and other organsisations on Thursday staged a protest and sat in dharna outside Raj Bhavan here in Ranchi demanding a judicial probe into the death of the rights activist as well as the release of all political prionsers.
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Jharkhand Chief Minister Pays Tributes To Stan Swamy In Memorial Service

15/07/2021

NDTV / by PTI

Jharkhand has never lagged behind when it comes to making sacrifices be it tribal icon Birsa Munda or Father Stan Swamy and they will be remembered for their invaluable contribution to the society, Chief Minister Hemant Soren said on Thursday.
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Bombay HC directs NIA, prison authorities to examine Stan Swamy’s medical reports

Bombay HC directs NIA, prison authorities to examine Stan Swamy’s medical reports


Bangalore, July 14

Scroll.in / by Scroll Staff

Swamy’s lawyer has blamed the central agency and Taloja Jail authorities for the activist’s death.
The Bombay High Court on Tuesday directed the National Investigation Agency and the Maharashtra prison department to examine the medical reports of tribal rights activist Stan Swamy, who died on July 5, reported the Hindustan Times.
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