en | 1:26:48 | 2022
By Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC)
Listen this briefing to hear experts detail the inadequate response of India’s courts to the escalating religious persecution and human rights violations under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.
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hindi | 48:02min | 2022
By Satya Hindi
Was the corporate world the reason for the arrest of Sudha Bharadwaj, a social worker who fought for the underprivileged? Was there a conspiracy to implicate him in the Bhima Koregaon case? How was her experience during his three years in prison? How does she view the current times for socio-economic movements? Does she expect times to change? Dr. Mukesh Kumar talking to Sudha Bhardwaj.
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● Government raids offices of NGOs and blocks foreign funding
● Journalists and activists targeted by Pegasus Spyware
● Activists in detention under draconian laws
India is currently rated Repressed by the CIVICUS Monitor. There are a total of 49 countries in the world with this rating (see all). This rating is typically given to countries where civic space is heavily contested by power holders, who impose a combination of legal and practical constraints on the full enjoyment of fundamental rights (see full description of ratings).
article 14 / by Shamik Bag
By using security laws, deploying surveillance technology, and leveraging potent national interest narratives, Narendra Modi’s Hindu-first government has targeted critics and eroded the rule of law in India—often in violation of the Constitution, using legal loopholes and grey areas. Through the lens of the notorious Bhima Koregaon case, we investigate these tactics in-depth, and report how citizens are fighting to preserve the world’s largest democracy.
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Scroll.in / by Peter Ronald deSouza, The India Forum
Making Christmas Good Governance Day, harassing the Missionaries of Charity and Stan Swamy’s death in custody all go against the idea of decency.
The spate of attacks on churches in some states of India, even during the Christmas season of 2021, is not as disturbing to me as five other actions taken by the current political dispensation…The first is the incarceration and subsequent death of Stan Swamy, while still under custody as an undertrial under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
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04/03/2022
Scroll.in / by Scroll Staff
The report from the US-based NGO attributed BJP government’s ‘discriminatory policies’ and persecution of Muslims for India’s standing in the report.
India was called a “partially free” country for the second year in a row in the 2022 report by the United States non-governmental organisation, Freedom House. India’s was 66th on the “Freedom of the World” rankings – a notch higher from last year’s 67.
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01/03/2022
The Hindu / by Parvathi Benu
The main pointers for the lower rankings include – politicians and journalists surveillance, activist Stan Swamy’s death, and the Lakshmipur Kheri incidents.
India, for the second consecutive year, continues to not completely free country, according to the findings in the Freedom of the World report.
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Read full report: Freeedom in The World 2022: The Global Expansion of Authoritarian Rule
02/02/2022
The Print / by Praveen Swami
Many democracies understand the need for lawful surveillance against serious crimes. Few provide the executive such sweeping powers like India does.
At once unconstitutional, ungenerous and un-English,” raged the London Times in summer of 1844, as the world’s first great surveillance scandal exploded inside the halls of parliament…
Technical evidence suggesting at least some of the Bhima Koregaon case was planted on suspects—using a relatively crude and unsophisticated malware called Netwire—shows what happens when intelligence services operate unregulated and without accountability.
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02/02/2022
The Wire / by Siddharth Varadarajan
Israeli investigative reporter Ronen Bergman speaks at length about the explosive story he co-authored in the New York Times on the sale of Pegasus spyware around the world, including to India.
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Also read:
● Bhima Koregaon accused and their counsel write to SC’s Pegasus technical committee alleging snooping (The Leaflet/ Jan 2022)
● Leaked Data Shows Surveillance Net in Elgar Parishad Case May Have Crossed a Line (The Wire / July 2021)
09/12/2021
Scroll.in / by Scroll Staff
India features on the list of nations with “repressed” democratic values in a report released by South African non-profit organization Civicus ahead of the United States summit on democracy scheduled to start from December 9…
In India, the report noted, the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, or UAPA, was abused by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to keep several people “in pre-trial detention on baseless charges and deny them bail”.
The report mentioned the detentions made under UAPA in the Bhima Koregaon case, including those of activists Sudha Bharadwaj and Stan Swamy.
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Read full report
09/12/2021
Scroll.in / by Scroll Staff
The data published by the Committee to Protect Journalists also said 24 journalists were killed this year till December 1 for their work….
The Committee to Protect Journalists report also showed that seven journalists were behind bars in India. These include Siddique Kappan, Manan Gulzar Dar, Aasif Sultan, Rajeev Sharma, Tanveer Warsi, and Bhima Koregaon case accused Gautam Navlakha and Anand Teltumbde.
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The Telegraph / by Ajay Gudavarthy
… The Dalit intellectual and activist, Anand Teltumbde, had lamented for long that reservation has benefited about 6 per cent of Dalits, leaving the rest in abject poverty. One of the consequences of this is that this privileged minority among Dalits begins to be characterized more by its new-found class mobility rather than by caste-based concerns. It is not surprising that Anand’s incarceration has not mobilized Dalit-Bahujan organizations; most of them believe that articulating such ‘abstract’ structural issues brings no concrete benefits to the Dalit-Bahujan cause.
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Also read:
● Let’s Remember the Lesson of Bhima Koregaon: Down with the New Peshwai (Sanhati, March 2018)
Free Press Journal / by Anil Singh
Ultimately, all depends on the ability of the SC’s three-member probe panel to find incontrovertible evidence of snooping on citizens in the name of national security.
… The Pegasus episode is likened to Watergate but that was just a break-in ordered by the Nixon administration at the rival party’s office to get some ‘incriminating evidence’. Today, not only can such evidence be stealthily extracted from the mobile phone of the target, it can also be planted in their phone or laptop. Tests conducted by Arsenal, an independent US lab, on the laptops of two tribal rights activists arrested in the Bhima-Koregaon case show that the ‘incriminating evidence’ was planted in them.
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Also read:
● Leaked Data Shows Surveillance Net in Elgar Parishad Case May Have Crossed a Line (The Wire / Jul 2021)