Context – Page 6 – free them all

Can Fr Stan Swamy’s PIL be the blueprint for justice to thousands of undertrials lodged under UAPA?

18/08/2023 Asha

The Leaflet / by Sarah Thanawala

Can the judgment which granted bail to Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira form the basis for implementation of the same principles for granting bail to other accused in the Bhima Koregaon–Elgar Parishad case as well as to the other 500 detenues in Jharkhand who are still at the pre- or post-trial stage?
… A public interest litigation (PIL) filed by the late Father Stan Swamy in 2017 in the Jharkhand High Court may serve as a path in the direction of ending incarceration of the disturbingly large number of those held in custody without a trial.
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Also watch/read:
● Video: Vernon v. State of Maharashtra: A Breakthrough in Bail Jurisprudence under the UAPA? (PUCL India / Aug 2023)
● Even after Stan Swamy’s death, the fight to get justice for Jharkhand undertrials is still alive (Scroll.in / Dec 2021)
● In Jharkhand, Scheduled Tribes Still Battle Flimsy Criminal Cases Filed With Little Evidence (IndiaSpend / Oct 2021)
● Public interest litigation filed by Stan Swamy and Xavier Soreng in 2017 (CJP / 2017)
● A study of Undertrials in Jharkhand (Sanhati / by Bagaicha Research Team / Feb 2016)

Rona Wilson writes about Five Years of Incarceration – and the Audacity of Hope

05/07/2023 Asha

The Wire / by Rona Wilson

Father Stan Swamy died on this day two years ago, while incarcerated in the Elgar Parishad case. His co-accused Rona Wilson writes about continuing oppression in the country – and where he finds hope.
To have spent more than five years in prison, for alleged offences under the most draconian acts of the Indian Penal Code, fully aware that the only ‘crime’ of you and your co-defendants is speaking truth to power, is an experience that is surreal. To live such a quotidian life in prison is a dystopia that stares at you. Yet you have little choice in prison but to engage with this audacity. It is through words that you confront this dystopia, name it.
Through words we name the world we confront/inhabit, and make sense of our existence.
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Karnataka High Court advocate says ‘legal system is under attack from fascism’

26/06/2023 Asha

The Hindu / by Nellore Sravani

The legal system is under attack from fascism, and there is a need to recognise the pattern in which this is being done and fight it, says Clifton D’Rozario, an advocate from the Karnataka High Court.
Speaking at a seminar on ‘Protection of Constitutional Values – Role of State Lawyers’, organised by the All India Lawyers’ Association for Justice (AILAJ) in Vijayawada on June 25 (Sunday), Mr. Rozario, who is the general secretary of AILAJ, said the Babri Masjid case, the Justice Loya case, the Bhima Koregaon case point out to this pattern, where the judiciary seemed hesitant to go against the government.
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US government report flags ‘significant human rights issues’ in India

21/03/2023 Asha

US government report flags ‘significant human rights issues’ in India

22/03/2023

Scroll.in / by Scroll Staff

The report was released nearly a year after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed concern about the ‘rise in human rights abuses’ in India.
An annual report released by the United States government on Monday flagged “significant human rights issues” in India, including extra-judicial killings, torture and arbitrary arrests.
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Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2022

20/03/2023

By United States Department of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor

…
Arbitrary Arrest: The law prohibits arbitrary arrest or detention, however, police reportedly continued to arrest persons arbitrarily. There were reports of police detaining individuals for custodial interrogation without identifying themselves or providing arrest warrants…
Multiple courts denied bail to the majority of the 16 activists incarcerated on conspiracy charges related to the Elgaar Parishad Bhima Koregaon protests that Page 10 resulted in several deaths. The accused claimed the charges were politically motivated. In 2021, human rights activist and Jesuit priest Father Stan Swamy, age 84, died in a private hospital after contracting COVID-19 in prison and after being denied bail on medical grounds by an NIA special court. On August 10, the Supreme Court granted bail on medical grounds to Varvara Rao, age 82, a poet and human rights activist, and directed that he should not leave Mumbai without the court’s permission. On November 26, the Supreme Court affirmed the Bombay High Court’s order to release Anand Teltumbde, age 73, on bail on the condition that he remain within the Mumbai jurisdiction until the trial concludes. Additionally, activist Sudha Bharadwaj was released on bail in December 2021.
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Has India Ever Been a Democracy? – Book review by Anand Teltumbde

14/03/2023 Asha

The Wire / by Anand Teltumbde

Debashish Roy Chowdhury and John Keane’s ‘To Kill a Democracy’ deals with the question how democracies get killed and dismisses the commonplace perspective of the “breakdowns”.

“Democracy in India is only a top-dressing on an Indian soil, which is essentially undemocratic…”
∼ B.R. Ambedkar

The title of Debashish Roy Chowdhury and John Keane’s book, To Kill a Democracy: India’s Passage to Despotism, implies that India was a democracy which has been killed and transformed into despotism under Narendra Modi. Not quite; it rather argues that the current state of degeneration, though representing a kink in the slow-paced rhetorical liberalism of plutarchy, is not entirely brought about by the Hindutva dispensation.
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How the Politics of Hate Unites South Asia

29/01/2023 Asha

The Wire / by Farahnaz Ispahani

Not just Indian, but Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka too appear to be well within an era of media incitement, orchestrated attacks on minority religious institutions, and identity politics.
The volume Politics Of Hate: Religious Majoritarianism in South Asia presents the research of noted scholars on the role of the media and political leaders in deploying hatred for political advantage.
… In July 2021, jailed tribal rights activist Father Stan Swamy died in a prison in Mumbai, at the age of eighty-four. A Jesuit priest, who suffered from Parkinson’s disease, was arrested in October 2020 after being accused of terrorism along with sixteen other activists, academics and lawyers. Mary Lawlor, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders, had referred to this detention as ‘inexcusable’.
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On Human Rights Day, a look at India’s surging human rights abuses / Personal liberty in India

10/12/2022 Asha

On Human Rights Day, a look at India’s surging human rights abuses

10/12/2022

National Herald / by NH Web Desk

The adoption of Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is marked as Human Rights Day on December 10, and December 2023 will mark the 75th anniversary of its adoption by the United Nations General Assembly.
… According to the Human Rights Watch, Indian authorities brought politically motivated cases, including under draconian sedition and terrorism laws, against human rights defenders, student activists, academics, opposition leaders, and critics, blaming them for the communal violence in February in Delhi as well as caste-based violence in Bhima Koregaon in Maharashtra state in January 2018.
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Rights day: Call for release of Sikh political prisoners

11/12/2022

The Times of India / by TNN

Chandigarh/Jalandhar/Bathinda: Human rights activists, academicians and various religious activists on Saturday asked the Centre to release all political prisoners.
… In Faridkot, farmer body Kirti Kisan Union (KKU) along with Naujawan Bharat Sabha (NBS) and Punjab Students Union (PSU) took out a protest march and accused the BJP-led Centre of “not caring for the rights of protesting people and putting activists in jail on flimsy grounds”. They also accused the Centre of “mistreating activists” arrested for Bhima Koregaon and Delhi riots.
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The situation of personal liberty in India

11/12/2022

Indica News / by Justice Markandey Katju

Justice Markandey Katju is a former Judge, Supreme Court of India, and former Chairman, Press Council of India.
In his Hamlyn Lecture, Lord Denning, the celebrated Judge of England, said, ” Whenever one of the King’s judges takes his seat in Court there is one application which by long tradition has priority over all others, and that is an application for a writ of habeas corpus. The counsel has only to say ‘My Lord, I have an application which concerns the liberty of a subject’, and forthwith the judge will put all other matters aside and hear it ”.
But what is the position in India?
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Will rely on ‘historic’ verdict to secure release of Elgar Parishad case accused: Lawyer

14/10/2022 Asha

Pic credits: Committee for the Defence and Release of GN Saibaba

● Supreme Court Stays Release Of Prof GN Saibaba & Others In UAPA Case, Suspends Bombay HC’s Acquittal Order (Live Law / Oct 15, 2022)

Will rely on ‘historic’ verdict to secure release of Elgar Parishad case accused: Lawyer

15/10/2022

The Times of India / by Vaibhav Ganjapure

After securing acquittal for Prof GN Saibaba and four others primarily based on absence of sanction under UAPA’s Section 45 (1), his lawyers now have plan to rely on the Nagpur bench of the Bombay high court’s verdict for securing the release of several accused who are also behind bars in the Elgar Elgar Parishad case.
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As GN Saibaba gets bail in Maoist link case, let’s recall the Elgar Parishad–Bhima Koregaon case

15/10/2022

Free Press Journal / by Urvi Mahajan

More than eight years after his arrest, the Bombay High Court on Friday acquitted former Delhi University professor G N Saibaba in an alleged Maoist links case for want of valid sanction for prosecution under the stringent anti-terror law UAPA…
With GN Saibaba getting acquitted by the Bombay High Court’s Nagpur bench on Friday, here’s a look at the other Maoist-link case which is the Elgar Parishad-Bhima Koregaon case.
In the Bhima-Koregaon case, the investigation was taken over by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in 2020, the initial probe being done by the Pune police. Most of the accused have spent years in custody, being arrested in August 2018.
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Bombay HC Frees Saibaba, Others in ‘Maoist Link’ Case

14/10/2022

The Wire / by The Wire Staff

The Nagpur bench of the high court allowed the appeal of all six convicted persons, including Pandu Narote who died in August this year.
Former Delhi University professor G.N. Saibaba and five others were acquitted in the Maoist links case by the Bombay high court, allowing their appeal against conviction and life sentence…
After Saibaba’s conviction, his lawyer in the lower court, Surendra Gadling; his colleague Hany Babu; and his close friend Rona Wilson were also arrested in years to come under the UAPA charges. While Gadling fought his case in court, Babu and Wilson had run a campaign for his release. All three are named as prime accused in the Elgar Parishad case of 2018.
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Also read:

● Report: UAPA – CRIMINALISING DISSENT AND STATE TERROR (PUCL / Sep 2022)
Download report
● Silencing critics: Apex Court view ‘brain is more dangerous’ revoking Saibaba acquittal (Counterview / Oct 16, 2022)
● “Urban Naxals” Are Making Frequent Requests For House Arrest: Solicitor General Tushar Mehta Tells Supreme Court [read order] (Live Law / Oct 15, 2022)

Prisoners of Conscience Under Modi Regime

25/09/2022 Asha

By Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation

Since the BJP’s rise to power in 2014, the list of people -ranging from human rights activists to lawyers, and journalists to students – being persecuted for their identity and their fidelity to fighting for democratic and progressive rights, has grown rapidly. Starting from the arrests related to Bhima Koregaon in 2018 and protests against CAA in 2020 to the recent arrests of activist Teesta Setalvad and journalist Mohammad Zubair, the current regime is bent on imprisoning any person who speaks uncomfortable truths and exposes their lies.
Read full statemnt

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Also visit:

● Prisoners of Conscience in India. The Prisoners of Conscience in India (PoCI) documents and highlights the cases of people who have been imprisoned in India because of their peaceful expression of political, religious, or other conscientiously held beliefs.

Political Prisoners Unite the British Raj and ‘New India’

13/09/2022 Asha

The Wire / by Partho Sarothi Ray

Just as the British rulers used to refer to political prisoners during their rule as ‘terrorists,’ the rulers of today also call people imprisoned for opposing them ‘terrorists’.

Today, September 13, is Political Prisoners Day.

“Ora Bhagat Singher bhai, ora Khudiramer bhai,
Samasta rajbandider mukti chai, mukti chai”
(‘They are the brothers of Bhagat Singh, they are the brothers of Khudiram,
We want the freedom of all political prisoners’)
– Popular Bengali song by Bipul Chakraborty

On September 13, 1929, Jatin Das, the 24-year-old revolutionary freedom fighter, died in Lahore Jail after a 63-day long hunger strike, demanding humane treatment of political prisoners under the British Raj…
The current government has similarly instituted cases like the Bhima Koregaon-Elgar Parishad case and the Delhi riots case to allege ‘conspiracies’ and thereby imprison a large number of activists and critics and demonise them as ‘anti-nationals’ and ‘terrorists’.
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Video: Custodial Violence, Judicial Negligence and State Apathy

12/09/2022

en │ 52min │2022

By The Polis Project

On 5 October 2020, Atikur Rahman, journalist Siddique Kappan, student Masood Ahmad, and taxi driver Mohammad Alam were arrested in Mathura, in Uttar Pradesh in, India They were on their way to meet the family of a Dalit woman who was raped and murdered by a group of men from the dominant caste in Hathras…
The denial of medical treatment and bail must be seen as a part of a larger pattern of abuse of power directed toward dissenters and political prisoners in India. On 5 July 2021, 84-year-old Jesuit priest and human rights defender Father Stan Swamy died in judicial custody at the Holy Family Hospital in Mumbai, India.
Watch video