Context – Page 17 – free them all

A Call to the Conscience of Citizens! Rise up against a `Situation Worse than the Emergency’!

25/06/2020 Rani

By PUCL

Mr Ravi Kiran Jain – President
Dr V. Suresh – Nat. Gen Secretary

25th June 2020 marks the 45th year of the Declaration of the infamous Emergency Declaration of Indira Gandhi. It is a day remembered as the day in 1975, when the Indian Government waged a war on its own people, suspending the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Indian Constitution and turning India into an authoritarian country. …

COVID-19: Jails turn into hotbeds of disease

25/05/2020 Maya

Drawing by Arun Ferreira

COVID-19: AT LEAST THREE DIE IN MAHARASHTRA PRISONS

26/05/2020

The Wire / by Sukanya Shantha

In an affidavit submitted to the Bombay high court in response to a PIL, the state government said that a prisoner each has died in the central prisons of Taloja and Yerwada, and in Dhule district prison. Maharashtra is the first state to have reported deaths in prisons so far.
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COVID-19: Jails turn into hotbeds of disease

25/05/2020

The Hindu / by Sonam Saigal

Judges withhold bail; several prison reforms recommended over the years have fallen through the cracks.
On May 5, two months after the Arthur Road jail superintendent warned that an outbreak of COVID-19 could not be contained in the jail due to overcrowding, his worst fears came true: the first positive case was discovered in the precincts.
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Maharashtra Prisoner Released on Parole Says Jails Unprepared to Handle COVID-19 Pandemic

30/03/2020

The Wire / by Sukanya Shantha

No transport has been arranged for those who are released, while inmates still in prison fear for their health.
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BJP rulers’ standard mode of operation amidst Covid-19: Turning ‘victims’ into accused

17/05/2020 Maya

Counterview/ by Surabhi Agarwal, Sandeep Pandey, Shreekumar

At a time when there can be no mass mobilisations or street protests, and when so many people are distressed, anxious and distracted by the unprecedented challenges our country is facing due to the Covid-19 crisis, the government’s actions against activists, journalists, intellectuals and Muslims appear to be calculated and insidious.
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VINDICTIVE GOVT FINDS SEDITION UNDER EVERY STONE

14/05/2020

National Herald / by Ashlin Mathew

Even as the Government claims to be waging a desperate war against the coronavirus and the lockdown has crippled the economy, draconian laws are being invoked to punish protestors and stifle dissent.
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UN raises concerns over exploitative provisions of UAPA [full communique]

16/05/2020 Maya

Sabrang / by Sabrang India

Sites labelling of people as terrorists, reversal of burden of proof, and prolonged pre-trial detention as inconsistent with international Human Rights and legal standards.
In a special communication dated May 6, four United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteurs have written to the government of India about their serious concerns with respect to violation of human rights that are made possible by several provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act 1967 and amendments made to it in 2019.
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Maharashtra Women Prisons Hit Hard, Safety of Children a Prime Concern

10/05/2020 Maya

The Wire / by Sukanya Shantha

With a woman inmate testing positive for coronavirus at Byculla prison, a look at the rise in cases in Maharashtra’s overcrowded state prisons.
Mumbai: Contrary to the claims made by the Maharashtra home and prisons department that utmost care has been taken to save prisons from COVID-19 outbreak, cases of infection have been on the rise in state prisons.
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BYCULLA JAIL INMATE TESTS POSITIVE FOR CORONAVIRUS

Indiatoday / by Saurabh Vaktania

A woman has tested positive for novel coronavirus in Byculla women’s jail in Mumbai. The patient, a 54-year-old inmate, tested positive on Saturday.
A 54-year-old inmate of the Byculla women’s jail tested positive for novel coronavirus, officials said on Sunday. The new case of coronavirus from the central Mumbai jail comes two days after a doctor attached to it tested positive for Covid-19.
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PUDR: Release Vulnerable Prisoners Now!

27/04/2020 Maya

By Peoples Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR)

PUDR expresses apprehensions over the health status of Anand Teltumbde and Gautam Navlakha …
Both Prof. Anand Teltumbde and Mr. Gautam Navlakha were interrogated by the NIA and have been sent to judicial custody. It has come to light that one of the officers of the NIA, Mumbai has tested positive for Covid-19 in this period. Anand Teltumbde was subsequently tested for suspected exposure and his report is negative for Covid-19.
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IN PARALLEL WITH THE COVID 19 PANDEMIC, WE NOW HAVE A PANDEMIC OF ARRESTS

26/04/2020

The Wire/ by Pamela Philipose

Lockdown – the word that best describes our present physical and mental state – has now acquired a vicious new meaning. As if in parallel to the COVID-19 pandemic, we now have a pandemic of arrests, with prison gates clanging shut on those marked by the state as anti-nationals.
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Anand Teltumbde’s pursuit of Ambedkar’s radical civility

20/04/2020 Maya

Forward Press / by V. Geeta

On 14 April 2020, the 129th anniversary of Dr B.R. Ambedkar, Prof Anand Teltumbde handed himself over to the custody of the National Investigation Agency as ordered by the Supreme Court in the Bhima Koregaon case. Drawing on Teltumbde’s writings, V. Geetha argues that it is the real, radical Ambedkar that he looks up to, not the toned-down version of Ambedkar that the civil order and the State is comfortable with.
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Why is India targeting writers during the coronavirus pandemic?

16/04/2020 Maya

Pic published by kractivist.org

The Guardian / by Priyamvada Gopal and Salil Tripathi

Journalists, intellectuals and dissidents are being threatened by Modi’s government.
As a lethal virus scorches its way across continents, the leftwing Indian rights campaigner Gautam Navlakha has been reminding us of the words of Leonard Cohen, urging people to speak up for the right things: “There is a crack/a crack in everything, that’s how light gets in.” While many of us experience lockdown in varying degrees of constraint, Navlakha – who cited Cohen’s lyrics in a recent statement – faces actual incarceration as does another high-profile Indian, the eminent academic and Dalit intellectual Prof Anand Teltumbde.
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Hindi Newspapers Look Away as Anand Teltumbde Is Arrested

15/04/2020 Maya

The Wire / by Aman Abhishek

In the aftermath of the Teltumbde’s arrest, his prescient comment calling media ‘subservient’ appears remarkably accurate.
Anand Teltumbde is a world-renowned public intellectual known for his rigorous analysis of the caste system in India. Perhaps one could have imagined, or at least hoped, that his arrest on the day of Ambedkar Jayanti would have generated a detailed coverage in the mainstream Hindi media, especially since the charges against him are very clearly directed at his intellectual work – he is accused of inciting caste-based violence and of being an “urban Naxal”.
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Release Those Charged Under Serious Offences – 130 Lawyers Make Recommendations [Read Letter]

31/03/2020 Maya

livelaw.in / by Nitish Kashyap

A total of 130 lawyers have written to the Chief Minister of Maharashtra, State Home Minister and Chief Justice of Bombay High Court expressing grave concern regarding the safety of “thousands of individuals incarcerated in prisons and other settings of detention such as observation homes, special homes, children homes, detention centers, borstal homes, etc” in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic.
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MHARASHTRA PRISONERS RELEASED SAYS JAIL UNPREPARED TO HANDLE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

31/01/2020

The Wire / by Sukanya Shantha

No transport has been arranged for those who are released, while inmates still in prison fear for their health.
Mumbai: Even as the Maharashtra state government has slowly begun releasing incarcerated persons on parole and interim bail as a safeguard against the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, fear and desperation has gripped those languishing in the jail.
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