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Author: Maya

Vernon Gonsalve’s third birthday in a crowded jail

Vernon Gonsalve’s third birthday in a crowded jail

By Sagar Abraham-Gonsalves @ fb

Yesterday was my father’s birthday. For a third year he spent it in a crowded jail and for a second year in a row he did so under the serious threat of a pandemic out of control. The threat seems far more severe this year and he, now aged 64, still very much falls in the category of vulnerable people. In the absence of an individual, memories are what we tend to hold onto and so I thought of sharing a memory from his earlier birthday in prison in 2019. …

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Telangana govt bans Revolutionary Writers Association, 15 other orgs

Telangana govt bans Revolutionary Writers Association, 15 other orgs

Siasat / by Yunus Y Lasania

The Telangana government on Friday banned 16 organisations, including the Revolutionary Writers Association, known as Virasam, claiming that these are frontal bodies of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist), and are engaged in “tactics” that “wage war against the state”. The order was passed by chief secretary Somesh Kumar, with effect from March 30 this year.
… The Government Order also clearly states that the organisations are also being banned for demanding the release of Prof. GN Sai Baba, Rona Wilson, and writer Vara Vara Rao (who is from Virasam), who are all currently in prison with regard to the Elgar Parishad case, on allegations of conspiring to kill Prime Minister Narendra Modi. 
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Also read: Andhra govt, Centre ‘collude’ to repeat Bhima Koregaon type case against rights activists (Counterview, April 2021)

There Is No Case. Release the Bhima Koregaon 16 and Compensate Them

There Is No Case. Release the Bhima Koregaon 16 and Compensate Them


by American Bar Association Justice Defenders Program (April 22):
+++ We are extremely concerned regarding further reports of evidence tampering to incriminate the #BhimaKoregaon activists and continue to call for their immediate release +++
We previously facilitated the work of @ArsenalArmed to conduct a forensic review of a computer seized by police and used as evidence in the #BhimaKoregaon cases. The report finds that an attacker used malware to infiltrate the laptop, depositing at least 10 incriminating letters +++
The latest report by Arsenal, facilitated by the Center, finds that 22 additional documents were also delivered to the computer by the same attacker +++
In light of the discovery of malware used for evidence tampering, we continue to call for the immediate release of all #BhimaKoregaon defenders +++ Our preliminary report on the #BhimaKoregaon cases identified potential procedural irregularities and possible fair trial violations +++ / Read preliminary report (Oct 2019) here (PDF)

There Is No Case. Release the Bhima Koregaon 16 and Compensate Them

22/04/2021

The Wire / by Jignesh Mevani and Meena Kandasamy

A second report released on April 21, 2020 by Arsenal Computing contains more damning evidence of how files were planted on Rona Wilson’s computer.
It is a year since we jointly authored an op-ed denouncing the arrest of Professor Anand Teltumbde on Ambedkar Jayanti.
We highlighted the fact that his incarceration in the Bhima Koregaon case had less to do with any so-called conspiracy, and more to do with his Dalit-centred Marxist politics, which was seen as a direct threat to the corporate-Manuvadi government of Modi.
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From FIR to Malware Claims: A Timeline of the Bhima Koregaon Case

From FIR to Malware Claims: A Timeline of the Bhima Koregaon Case

The Quint / by Vakaha Sachdev

All you need to know about the 16 accused, 3 charge sheets, and the controversial narrative surrounding the case.
When exactly did the Bhima Koregaon case, as it has come to be known, begin?
Was it on the day the first set of activists were arrested, back in June 2018? Was it the day when malware was allegedly planted on the computers of at least one of the accused, two years before that? Or do we have to go all the way back to the Battle of Bhima Koregaon itself to understand what’s really going on with this case?
And when will this case, which has dragged on for nearly three years with a trial nowhere in sight, end?
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Webinar: The Bhima-Koregaon case of imprisoned activists and India’s autocratic turn

Webinar: The Bhima-Koregaon case of imprisoned activists and India’s autocratic turn

By InSAF India

Ideas Behind Bars – The Bhima-Koregaon case of imprisoned activists and India’s autocratic turn
The webinar is part of InSAF India’s campaign demanding the release of all jailed scholars, students and civic activists in India.
24 April 2021
USA: 10:30am EDT / 9:30am CDT / 7:30am PDT
UK: 3:30pm BST / Europe: 4:30pm CEST / India: 8pm IST
REGISTER TO JOIN THE ZOOM WEBINAR HERE

Our panellists
+ Jed Crandall Associate Professor, Biodesign Center for Biocomputation, Security and Society and School of Computing, Informatics, and Decision Systems Engineering, Arizona State University, USA
+ Suchitra Vijayan Author of Midnight’s Borders: A People’s History of Modern India and Founder and Executive Director of The Polis Project
+ Tarunabh Khaitan Professor of Public Law and Legal Theory, and Vice Dean, Faculty of Law, Oxford University, UK
Moderated discussion to be followed by Q&A with the audience.

​This webinar aims to shed light on alarming authoritarian developments in India that have scarcely received adequate international attention. …

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India’s Hindu Nationalist Project Relies on Brutal Repression

India’s Hindu Nationalist Project Relies on Brutal Repression

Jacobinmag / by RB Moore

The Indian state under Prime Minister Narendra Modi is meting out vicious repression against dissenters to his right-wing Hindu nationalist vision. Yet that constant need to crack down on protests also reveals something: his far-right project is undeniably brittle.
… An event called the Elgar Parishad, organized on December 31, 2017 in the city of Pune, Maharashtra, was an attempt to bring together the opposition movements that had emerged during Modi’s first term. Convened by two retired judges with a history of anti-caste and anti-Hindutva activism, the event drew participation from roughly 250 anti-caste, progressive, and left organizations and featured fiery speeches, musical performances, and cultural programs.
The event was set for the day before an anti-caste commemoration in the nearby town of Bhima Koregaon, which celebrated the military defeat of the notorious casteist Peshwa rulers on January 1, 1818 at the hands of the British.
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Hindutva, Dalits and Neoliberal Order / One year on, no sign of freedom for Anand Teltumbde

Hindutva, Dalits and Neoliberal Order / One year on, no sign of freedom for Anand Teltumbde

Hindutva, Dalits and Neoliberal Order

16/04/2021

The Leaflet / by Anand Teltumbde

This is an extract from Hindutva and Dalits; Perspectives for Understanding Communal Praxis Edited by Anand Teltumbde and published by SAGE. It contains essays by numerous writers like Shamsul Islam, Ram Puniyani, Meena Kandasamy, Suhas Palshikar and Martin Macwan.
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One year on, no sign of freedom for Anand Teltumbde

15/04/2021

The Goan / by The Goan network

Draconian UAPA ensures Ambedkar’s grandson-in-law completes a year in detention.
Even as unworthy politicos in Goa and across the nation sang hosannas to pay homage to Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar on Wednesday, in a secluded corner cell of a Mumbai jail Dr Anand Teltumbde, the grandson-in-law of the Dalit icon and the architect of the Indian Constitution, spent the first day of a second year in detention.
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Irish & Canadian Jesuits call for the release of Stan Swamy / Video: Campaigns calling for release continue

Irish & Canadian Jesuits call for the release of Stan Swamy / Video: Campaigns calling for release continue

Release Human Rights Defender Stan Swamy SJ

16/04/2021

Irish Jesuits International / by Irish Jesuits International

Fr Swamy is in poor health. He is hearing impaired and has Parkinson’s disease, and there have been calls from around the world – including from Pope Francis – to free him. He had been harrassed by authorities for some time and anticipated the likelihood of his arrest. He spoke about it in a video he made just two days before it occurred. But he is still in prison, and had his application for bail rejected on 22nd March 2021.
Jesuit Response
On hearing the news of the bail refusal, the Jesuits’ Social Justice and Ecology Secretariat (SJES) in Rome released a Statement of Solidarity in which Fr Xavier Jeyaraj SJ said:
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Canadian Jesuits call for the release of 83-year-old human rights defender

14/04/2021

Broadview / by Kiernan Green

Jesuits in Canada and around the world continue to call for the release of Father Stan Swamy, an 83-year-old Indian Jesuit and human rights defender charged and imprisoned under India’s anti-terror laws…
The Indian Jesuit father advocated for the land rights of the Indigenous people of eastern India for five decades. In 2018, he co-filed a public interest litigation on behalf of over 3,000 Adivasi villagers imprisoned without the due process of a timely trial.
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Video: Campaigns calling for release of India´s Father Stan Swamy continue

14/04/2021


en | 2:36min | 2021

By Rome Reports

This Rome Reports video above features efforts — including those made by the Jesuits — to free Indian Father Stan Swamy from prison.
Watch video

Why Indian Scholars Must Be Protected Against ‘Content Seizure’

Why Indian Scholars Must Be Protected Against ‘Content Seizure’

The Quint/ by Arghya Bhaskar

A petition claims that, when seized, academic work becomes vulnerable to tampering, plagiarism, damage, destruction.
In the last week of March 2021, the Supreme Court of India heard a plea seeking the protection of ‘academic freedom’ from raids and seizures of police and investigative agencies.
Senior Advocate Nitya Ramakrishnan and Advocate Prassanna is representing the petitioners. The petition was filed in light of recent news events where allegations of ‘evidence planting’ have been made in the case of arrested intellectuals in the Bhima Koregaon incident. The Supreme Court has sought a reply from the Centre within four weeks in the matter.
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