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Category: Repression

CPJ calls on EU to hold India to account for media clampdown

CPJ calls on EU to hold India to account for media clampdown

Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) / by CPJ

The Committee to Protect Journalists on Wednesday called on the European External Action Service to hold Indian authorities accountable for widespread and severe press freedom violations when they meet for the annual India-EU Human Rights Dialogue on Friday, July 15 …
Gibson also called on the EU to press India for action on the following press freedom violations and attacks on journalists documented by CPJ:
▪ The ongoing pretrial detention of Gautam Navlakha, Anand Teltumbde, Siddique Kappan, and Manan Dar under India’s draconian anti-terror Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. 
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Also read:
● For the second consecutive year, India drops on freedom score (The Hindu / March 2022)
● Freeedom in The World 2022: The Global Expansion of Authoritarian Rule (Freedom House / Feb 2022, booklet)

Remembering Fr. Stan Swamy’s life and death

Remembering Fr. Stan Swamy’s life and death

Bangalore, July 2022

The Leaflet / by Shrutika Pandey and Shamim Modi

The absence of legal refuge grants the State impunity and constrains effective legal argumentation, progressive judicial pronouncements, and public mobilization.
A year ago, the nation lamented the unfortunate death of Father Stan Swamy, an activist and a Catholic priest who dedicated his entire life to defending tribal rights. Fr. Stan died in custody at the age of 83 years on alleged terrorism charges in the frivolous Bhima Koregaon case, after contracting COVID-19 and exacerbating his Parkinson’s disease while lodged in Mumbai’s Taloja prison for nine months.
With an illustrious life of fighting for the oppressed, his custodial death brought attention to the targeted persecution of anyone who, through constitutional means, poses uncomfortable questions of the State’s self-serving narrative. 
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How India has become a land of conspiracies that turns warriors battling injustice into villains

How India has become a land of conspiracies that turns warriors battling injustice into villains

Scroll.in / by Apoorvanand

From Bhima Koregaon to the Delhi riots, from the cases against Teesta Setalvad and Mohammed Zubair, reality has been inverted.
Conspiracy! The sinister word has reappeared with the arrest of human rights advocate Teesta Setalvad and former police officers Sreekumar and Sanjiv Bhatt by the Gujarat police on the weekend. The arrests were prompted by the Supreme Court, which smelt something fishy about the case in which the petitioners contended that the conspiracy behind the 2002 Gujarat violence had not been investigated thoroughly.
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Zubair, Teesta, Bhima Koregaon ‘Evidence’: Why are India’s Institutions Silent?

Zubair, Teesta, Bhima Koregaon ‘Evidence’: Why are India’s Institutions Silent?

The Quint / by Seema Chishti

How much longer before the cloud hanging over India’s democratic record today morphs into a shroud?
A big tree fell in the forest a few days ago. A news report published on 16 June in WIRED, a renowned tech magazine, highlights the controversial detention of human rights activists in the Bhima Koregaon violence case. It revealed a very disturbing chain of events. The report was about the fabrication of evidence. How that story was treated by all institutions reveals reams about the institutional collapse in India. The noise of crumbling institutions is louder than if an edifice of brick and mortar was to actually come crashing down.
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Also read:
● Police Linked to Hacking Campaign to Frame Indian Activists (Wired / June 16, 2022)

The contemporary relevance of Internal Emergency 1975-77

The contemporary relevance of Internal Emergency 1975-77

The Leaflet / by Arvind Narrain

On June 25, we mark the 47th anniversary of the declaration of Emergency by the then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi. The events of the emergency have long since faded into history, but there are uncanny resonances with the contemporary context…
The use of the UAPA and the NIA by the current regime is, in Vajpayee’s language, the ‘beginning of the police state’ and a ‘blot on democracy’. Advani’s warning of the use of MISA against the opposition finds a resonance in the use of UAPA and NIA against protestors, be it the Bhima Koregaon 16, anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act protestors, Kashmiri protestors or a range of dissenters across the country. 
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And he waits for Shoma Sen

And he waits for Shoma Sen

Midday / by Ajaz Ashraf

Falling in love while trying to affect a change in the society, as their hearts beat for adivasis and dalits, the couple has now spent in jail nine out of 31 years of their life together.
I called up Tushar Kanti Bhattacharya, husband of Shoma Sen, an accused in the Bhima Koregaon case, on May 9, with a request: could he tell me their story—she languishing in jail and he alone outside? He said it was on this day in 1991 that Shoma and he were married. 
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Also read:
● And she waits for Gautam Navlakha (Midday / May 2022)

Sedition law: Lawyers and free speech activists welcome SC order / A Decade of Darkness

Sedition law: Lawyers and free speech activists welcome SC order / A Decade of Darkness


Drawing by Arun Ferreira

Sedition law: Lawyers and free speech activists welcome SC order

12/05/2022

The Economic Times / by Vasudha Venugopal

Nagpur-based lawyer Nihalsingh Rathod, who represents many accused in the Elgar Parishad case said the legislature should have re-examined the relevance of sedition a long time ago. The Supreme Court’s interim order was an important step in rights jurisprudence, he said.
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KEEP THE SEDITION LAW IN ABEYANCE: SUPREME COURT RULES IN A HISTORIC ORDER [read order]

11/05/2022

Live Law / by Livelaw News Network

In a historic development, the Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered that the 152-year old sedition law under Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code should be effectively kept in abeyance till the Union Government reconsiders the provision.
In an interim order, the Court urged the Centre and the State governments to refrain from registering any FIRs under the said provision while it was under re-consideration.
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A Decade of Darkness: Our New Database Reveals How A Law Discarded By Most Democracies Is Misused In India

04/02/2022

Article 14 / by Lubhyathi Rangarajan

For 151 years, Indians expressing their right to free speech and expression have faced the prospect of being accused of sedition: ‘showing disaffection’ towards the State under section 124A of the Indian Penal Code. Our new database counts 13,000 people charged with sedition between 2010-2021 and provides unprecedented insight into India’s use of a law discarded by most democracies. Its use has risen inexorably over the last decade, most recently against public protests, dissent, social-media posts, criticism of the government and even over cricket results.
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Also read:
● Explainer: How the Sedition Law Has Been Used in the Modi Era (The Wire / Mai 2022)

India’s sedition law, its usage, and the opinions around it / Anomalies in India’s justice system

India’s sedition law, its usage, and the opinions around it / Anomalies in India’s justice system

India’s sedition law, its usage, and the opinions around it

04/05/2022

The Hindu / by Suchitra Karthikeyan

On Monday, the Central government sought one more day to file a reply in plea challenging constitutional validity of the sedition charge under Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code
Sedition is once again the subject of debate as the Supreme Court Court is hearing pleas challenging it.
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Editorial on anomalies in India’s justice system

04/05/2022

The Telegraph / by The Editorial board

In spite of the Supreme Court’s insistence on the right to bail, people are denied relief at the drop of a hat.
The prime minister’s eloquent appeal on behalf of under-trial prisoners could not entirely erase the memory of incarcerated activists in the so-called Bhima-Koregaon case, for example, or protesters against the new citizenship laws.
The prime minister got it right. At the joint conference of chief ministers and high court chief justices, in which the Chief Justice of India delivered a speech reportedly mentioning how governments contributed to the courts’ caseload, Narendra Modi mentioned the staggering figure of 3.5 lakh under-trial prisoners in his own speech.
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Jharkhand Jan Sangharsh Morcha is holding the state accountable

Jharkhand Jan Sangharsh Morcha is holding the state accountable

Youthkiawaaz / by Harsh

Established just a few months ago, Jharkhand Jan Sangharsh Morcha (JJSM) is currently acting as an umbrella for over two dozen provincial-local people’s organisations of Jharkhand to raise voices against injustice, exploitation, corruption and to resolve the public problems in the region …
“Father Stan Swamy, who was one of the founder members of Visthapan Virodhi Jan Vikas Andolan, lived for the Adivasi and moolnivasi communities of Jharkhand.
Taking inspiration from him, various people’s organisations have formed this front as a tribute to him to fulfil his dream of bringing all the movements of Jharkhand on one platform,” says Satyam, a social activist associated with the front.
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Also read
● Narendra Modi’s Government Is Using False Charges of Terrorism to Repress Its Opponents (Jacobinmag / April 2022)

Narendra Modi’s Government Is Using False Charges of Terrorism to Repress Its Opponents

Narendra Modi’s Government Is Using False Charges of Terrorism to Repress Its Opponents

Jacobinmag / by P.M. Tony & Lotika Singha

Radical priest Stan Swamy was one of India’s leading social activists. Modi’s government is to blame for his death while awaiting trial on bogus terror charges, but the clampdown won’t snuff out the inspiring legacy of Swamy’s work with Adivasi communities.
Under the rule of Narendra Modi, the Indian state has launched a sweeping authoritarian clampdown on political dissent. One of the manifestations of this onslaught has been the jailing of opponents on trumped-up charges of terrorism and conspiracy.
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