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Category: Repression

Learning Curve: Teachers Are Expected To Guide Us, But Are Themselves Under Fire

Learning Curve: Teachers Are Expected To Guide Us, But Are Themselves Under Fire

Free Press Journal / by Vrijendra

The state of our teachers in higher education continues to become more and more perilous each passing year
As I write this, one more Teachers’ Day (September 5) has gone. Sadly, there is little to celebrate as the state of our teachers at all levels (let me confine it to teachers in higher education: in our colleges and universities and other institutions of higher education) continues to become more and more perilous each passing year.
… Finally, Dr Hany Babu, a DU professor and an anti-caste activist, completed four years in jail on July 28, 2024, without bail and no signs of an early trial. He was arrested under the UAPA in the Bhima-Koregaon Elgar Parishad case, along with other leading activists and academicians.
Read more

Also read:
▪ Hany Babu completes four years in prison without bail, trial (Maktoobmedia.com / Jul 2024)
▪ Three years ago on this day Hany Babu was arrested in the infamous Bhima Koregaon case (Maktoobmedia.com / Jul 2024)

The SC Is Making Bail Easier In Terrorism, Money Laundering Cases – Except When It Ignores Itself

The SC Is Making Bail Easier In Terrorism, Money Laundering Cases – Except When It Ignores Itself

Article 14 / by Areeb Uddin Ahmed

11 Supreme Court rulings over 10 months appear to be reshaping bail jurisprudence in India, especially with regard to India’s terrorism and money laundering laws, often used to incarcerate many without bail for years. Despite these landmark judgements, the Supreme Court has also avoided deciding bail on high-profile cases important to the government, in so doing ignoring its own rulings.
At least 11 Supreme Court rulings over 10 months granting bail appear to be gradually reshaping bail jurisprudence in India, especially with regard to India’s terrorism and money laundering laws. 
The restrictive bail provisions of these laws have been frequently used to keep accused, mostly protestors, poets, Opposition politicians, dissidents, academics and artists, in jail with no sign of trial.
Read more

Also read:
▪ SC adjourns hearing on bail plea of Bhima Koregaon case accused Jyoti Jagtap (Hindustan Times / Jul 2024)
▪ Bombay HC rejects default bail of five accused in Bhima Koregaon case (Scroll.in / Jul 2024)
▪ ‘Ominous portents’: Why High Court staying its own bail orders in Bhima Koregaon case is troubling (Scroll.in / Dec 2023)
▪ Inconsistencies in Bail Orders Mean Individual Liberty Is the Outcome of Judicial Lottery (The Wire / Oct 2022)

Ajay Kumar targeted for role as anti-displacement activist, opponent of ‘corporate loot’

Ajay Kumar targeted for role as anti-displacement activist, opponent of ‘corporate loot’

Counterview.net / by Campaign against State Repression (CASR)

The Campaign against State Repression (CASR) unequivocally condemns the arrest of human rights activist and Advocate Ajay Kumar by National Investigation Agency early morning 3 am from Chandigarh.
…
Ajay was actively involved in the Forum Against the War on People to oppose the attack by state forces and corporate-sponsored militia, Salwa Judum, on the Adivasi peasants of central India under Operation Green Hunt. He was also founding member of Vistapan Virodhi Jan Vikas Andolan (VVJVA), a conglomeration of more than 50 organisations from across the country seeking to challenge the forcible displacement of peasants particularly Adivasis, for the furtherance of corporate loot and land grab. VVJVA works against the forceful displacement of peasantry, particularly Adivasis for building big dams, industrial projects, mines, Special Economic Zones, highways, National Parks, Smart City projects etc. Ajay Kumar worked alongside the likes of Dr. B.D. Sharma (retired IAS officer), K.N. Pandit (trade union leader), Dr. B.P. Kesari, Father Stan Swamy, Sudha Bhardwaj, Dr. G.N. Saibaba and J. Madhuri in the formation of this forum in 2007.
Read full statement

Also read:
▪ TU activist Anirudh Rajan, lawyer Ajay Kumar in custody: Wounded reputation of world’s largest democracy? (Counterview / Sep 10, 2024)
▪ Student Activist’s Room Raided in Prayagraj by NIA Over Alleged Naxal Links (The Wire / Aug 2024)
▪ Senior activist Ajay Kumar’s arrest ‘imminent’ in same vein as Rona Wilson, Stan Swamy (Counterview / Jan 2024)

Activists and journalists continued to be targeted around elections despite UN Human Rights Committee scrutiny

Activists and journalists continued to be targeted around elections despite UN Human Rights Committee scrutiny

monitor.civicus.org / by CIVICUS

India’s civic space is rated as ‘repressed’ by the CIVICUS Monitor. In recent years, the government has misused the draconian anti-terror Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and other laws to keep activists behind bars and fabricate cases against activists and journalists for undertaking their work.
Read more

Also read:
▪ India: Submission to the UN Human Rights Committee on the deterioration of civic space (CIVICUS / Jul 2024)
▪ CIVIC FREEDOMS IN INDIA ‘REPRESSED’: GLOBAL MONITOR CIVICUS (The Wire / March 2023)
Read full report „People Power Under Attack 2022“

How SC has liberalised bail jurisprudence under anti-terror law UAPA in last three years

How SC has liberalised bail jurisprudence under anti-terror law UAPA in last three years

How Supreme Court has liberalised bail jurisprudence under anti-terror law UAPA in last three years

16/08/2024

The Print / by Akashat Jain

Section 43D(5) of the Act lays down stringent provisions for grant of bail, but there has been a gradual shift in giving bail to UAPA accused over past few years.
From bombing accused K.A. Najeeb to Bhima-Koregaon accused Vernon Gonsalves, the Supreme Court has allowed bail to many accused of terrorism in the last three years. It has allowed bail despite its 2019 order which pegged the standard for allowing bail under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), 1967 to be higher, a decision which has rarely followed.
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UAPA no exception to the rule on bail

15/08/2024

Hindustan Times / by HT Editorial

Taken together, SC’s pronouncements underline the draconian nature of the law. It is time this is addressed by the legislature of a mature democracy.
Time and again, the Supreme Court (SC) has pronounced that bail is the rule and jail the exception. But Tuesday’s ruling, that this holds true for special statutes such as the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, or UAPA, is of special import. Not because the apex court reiterated its protection of the personal liberty of citizens, but because in ruling so, it implicitly outlined how the law lends itself to strategic misuse.
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‘Modi govt has not learned from election results’: Asaduddin Owaisi questions UAPA

‘Modi govt has not learned from election results’: Asaduddin Owaisi questions UAPA


Hindustan Times / by HT News Desk
All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) supremo Asaduddin Owaisi on Saturday raised his concerns over the future of Muslims, tribals and Dalit people who are being held under Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). Taking a jibe, the Hyderabad MP said he hoped that Prime Minister Narendra Modi would learn something from the Lok Sabha election results, but they poured cold water on his expectation.
… The AIMIM chief further claimed that the stringent law became the reason for the death of 85-year-old Stan Swamy. Swamy, a tribal activist, died in judicial custody in 2021. He was arrested under the UAPA in connection with the 2018 Bhima-Koregaon violence case.
Read more

Also read:
▪ Legal experts call for a repeal of UAPA over misuse and rights violations (Frontline / May 2024)
▪ UAPA – CRIMINALISING DISSENT AND STATE TERROR – Study of UAPA Abuse in India, 2009-2022 (PUCL / Sep 2022). Download report

Poetic License: Outside of Village Periphery – Artists in Kabir Kala Manch struggle to earn a living due to censorship

Poetic License: Outside of Village Periphery – Artists in Kabir Kala Manch struggle to earn a living due to censorship

Outlook / by Rupali Jadhav

Artists in Kabir Kala Manch are struggling to earn a living due to state-sponsored censorship
Kabir Kala Manch, a Pune-based protest performance art troupe, has been a target of the State since its inception in 2002. The group propagates the anti-caste and equality ideology of Phule-Shahu-Ambedkar and Marx through songs and street plays.
In 2019, police arrested three members, Ramesh Gaichor, Sagar Gorkhe and Jyoti Jagtap, in the Bhima Koregaon case for allegedly inciting communalism through songs at Elgar Parishad.
Read more / read poem

Also read:
▪ How Kabir Kala Manch, the anti-caste cultural troupe, challenges the hierarchical social order (Scroll.in / Jul 2024)
▪ Kabir Kala Manch: A History of Revolutionary Singing and State Repression (ritimo / April 2022)
▪ Video: Dafachya Talavar (Songs of Defiance) – A short documentary on Kabir Kala Manch | Hindi, Marthi (subtitles: English) | 24:01min | 2022

How Dalits, Muslims, Adivasis encounter the State. ‘It has its boots on our necks’

How Dalits, Muslims, Adivasis encounter the State. ‘It has its boots on our necks’

The Print / by Suchitra Vijayan and Francesca Recchia

In ‘How Long Can The Moon Be Caged’, Suchitra Vijayan and Francesca Recchia look at present-day India through the lived experiences of political prisoners.
A Dalit activist we spoke to said that most people don’t encounter the state the way Dalits, Adivasis and Muslims do. She told us: ‘The state has always had a boot on our necks.’ Forget living; imagine what it takes to survive this. The boot is always pressed against minorities’ necks, making it hard to breathe, demanding that they beg for dignity every day. She added: ‘[For us] it doesn’t matter who is in power; oppression is the only thing that hasn’t changed.’
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How Long Can the Moon Be Caged?
Voices of Indian Political Prisoners
Authors: Suchitra Vijayan and Francesca Recchia
Publishing Date: Aug 2023
Publisher: Pluto Press
Pages: 247
A powerful look at authoritarian India through the experiences of political prisoners
How Long Can the Moon Be Caged? includes visual testimonies and prison writings from those falsely accused of inciting the Bhima Koregaon violence, by student leaders opposing the new discriminatory citizenship law passed in 2020, and by activists from the Pinjra Tod’s movement. In bringing together these voices, the book celebrates the courage, humanity and moral integrity of those jailed for standing in solidarity with marginalised and oppressed communities.
Read more / order

How the State uses ‘national security’ to spellbind the process of justice

How the State uses ‘national security’ to spellbind the process of justice

The Leaflet / by Gursimran Kaur Bakshi

As the J&K High Court recently reiterated, allegations of ‘terrorism’ have become a copy-paste template that the State uses to muffle dissent, but why do courts freeze the process of criminal justice on hearing ‘national security’?
…
The jurisprudence has resulted in widening the coercive powers of the police and investigation agencies. Since the court only forms its assessment on broad probabilities, a pattern has emerged from the evidence submitted by the prosecution in a wide range of UAPA cases where there is a similarity in terms of enormous allegations running into thousands of pages, generalised testimonies of witnesses; most of which are protected witnesses, lack of incriminating evidence and heavy reliance on electronic evidence and literature.
There are similarities in three specific instances: those arrested in the backdrop of the 2018 Bhima-Koregaon violence, deoperationalisation of Article 370, and 2020 Northeast Delhi riots.
Read more

Also read:
▪ Article 21 ‘overturned’ by new criminal laws: Lawyers, activists remember Stan Swamy (Counterview / Jul 2024)
▪ Authorities must immediately repeal repressive new criminal laws (Amnesty International / Jul 2024)
▪ A New Bill Shows Maharashtra Wants to Become a Police State Before Combatting Left-Wing Extremism (The Wire 7 Jul 2024)
▪ AI Report: India’s exploitation of terrorism financing assessments to target the civil society (Amnesty.org / Sep 2023)
▪ Maharashtra: Activists, Lawyers Added to ‘Union War Book’, Listed as ‘Enemies of the State’ (The Wire / Jul 2021)

TODAY, is WORSE than the ‘EMERGENCY!’

TODAY, is WORSE than the ‘EMERGENCY!’

Countercurrents / by Cedric Prakash

India will and should never forget that infamous night of 25/26 June 1975, when, the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had a state of emergency declared all over the country.
…
Just before his arrest on 8 October 2020, in a video-message that went viral, Jesuit Fr. Stan Swamy said, “What is happening to me is not something unique happening to me alone. It is a broader process that is taking place all over the country. We are all aware how prominent intellectuals, lawyers’ writers, poets, activists, students, leaders, they are all put into jail because they have expressed their dissent or raised questions about the ruling powers of India. We are part of the process. In a way I am happy to be part of this process. I am not a silent spectator, but part of the game, and ready to pay the price whatever be it.”
Read more

Also read:
▪ At UN Human Rights Review, PEN International Questions Crackdown on Dissent in India (The Wire / Jul 2024)
Read PEN International’s full report here
▪ India: Submission to the UN Human Rights Committee on the deterioration of civic space (CIVICUS /Jul 2024)
▪ To Think of Modi 3.0 as Less Dangerous Would Be a Misreading (The Wire | by Anand Teltumbde | Jun 2024)
▪ 48 years since the Emergency (PUCL.org / 2023)
In this section of the PUCL website, find the testimonies and memories of those who were arrested, resisted and fought the emergency. Inevitably, we will reflect on today’s challenges to Indian democracy, Constitutional values and human rights.