Father Stan Swamy, a martyr for the cause of the persecuted people of India
By Persecuted Prisoners’ Solidarity Committee (PPSC)
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There is freedom, but no mercy
The Indian Express / by T J S George
People are getting arrested as in the days of Indira Gandhi’s Emergency.
Freedom is a funny thing. When it is there, we don’t notice it. When it is not there, we don’t notice anything else. In a country as populous as India, half the people can take their freedom for granted without knowing that the other half is denied basic freedoms. This half-half reality is the defining feature of Narendra Modiji’s India.
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Video: Online Convention – Repeal UAPA and other repressive laws
hindi + en | 45min + 1h30min| 2021
On 26th June “Movement Against UAPA and Other Repressive Laws (MURL)” conducted ONLINE NATIONAL CONVENTION demanding REPEAL OF ALL UNCONSTITUTIONAL REPRESSIVE LAWS
Watch part 1
Watch part 2
Bail after 3 years for the incarcerated Mumbai Electric Employees Union Workers
tnlabour.in / By Thozhilalar Koodam
After 3 long years, the five workers of Mumbai Electric Employees Union are out on bail. The State which arrested these workers under UAPA in the aftermath of Bhima Koregaon incident has not been able to prove any of its charges. These workers were guilty of one thing only, they were to organise contract workers against their mighty owner Reliance. As they could not be charged of these activities as treason, the State keeps finding flimsy charges to keep hundreds of activists and workers in jail under other pretexts.
While they still have a long way to go to clear the charges against them, their union Mumbai Elecrtic Employees Union has released the following pamphlet in solidarity with the arrested workers and to continue the struggles of exploited contract workers against their management. This pamphlet was translated in hindi, tamil and telugu and was distributed among workers.
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UAPA bail orders come down hard on attempts to equate protest with “Terrorism” / A Cry for Justice
Delhi HC UAPA bail orders come down hard on attempts to equate protest with “Terrorism”
21/06/2021
The Leaflet / by Kavita Krishnan
The Delhi HC bail orders vindicate what pro-democracy activists have been saying since last year: The Delhi Police investigation is blatantly biased and has spun a fantastic conspiracy theory to falsely accuse anti-CAA protestors, especially those of the minority Muslim community, of the very “riots” that was planned and targeted against them making them the victims, says Kavita Krishnan.
…In the Bhima Koregaon case, and the Delhi riots case, as well as several cases involving unarmed protestors all over India, we have seen how the UAPA is used to criminalise protest and punish protestors.
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A Cry for Justice that Keeps Getting Louder
21/06/2021
The Leaflet / by Cedric Prakash
A regime that oppresses the weak and suppresses those who speak against it will always have to deal with more and more dissent. The key to peace and justice in India lies in following the Constitution, writes Cedric Prakash.
… From Aisha Sultana to Natasha Narwal, Devangana Kalita and Asif Iqbal Tanha. From Khori to Lakshadweep. From Tihar Jail to Taloja Jail. From Fr Stan Swami to Umar Khalid. From the Bhima-Koregaon sixteen to the other UAPA-incarcerated. From Sulabh to Siddique, from farmers to workers, from the unemployed to the refugees, from minorities to the marginalised, from the caregivers to the academics, from the toolkits to the brazen headlines, from rising costs to lack of vaccines—the cries for justice in India have never been so shrill and clear!
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What does state’s treatment of pre-trial political prisoners tell us?
The Indian Express / by Harsh Mander
Harsh Mander writes: It’s been three years since Bhima Koregaon accused were incarcerated by a state that continues to oppose bail for them, despite Covid and other grave threats to their health.
June 6 was a sombre milestone — the third anniversary of the incarceration of five rights activists in the Bhima Koregaon conspiracy case. Eleven more were subsequently jailed for the same conspiracy. These 16 women and men — the BK-16 accused — are intellectuals, lawyers, a poet, professors, cultural and rights activists and an 84-year-old Jesuit priest, all with sterling records of service with India’s most oppressed people.
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Three years after Bhima Koregaon: How criminal law was violated
The Leaflet / by Nihalsing B Rathod
Recalling his bruising experiences with an unjust criminal justice system as part of the legal team of the activists arrested in the questionable Bhima Koregaon violence case three years ago, Nihalsing B Rathod, in this second of a three-part series, recollects how basic tenets of criminal law were violated by the Pune Police in arresting Sudha Bharadwaj, Varavara Rao, Arun Fereira, and Vernon Gonsalves at various points, and extending their detention, as well as that of Surendra Gadling, Shoma Sen, Rona Wilson, Sudhir Dhawale and Mahesh Raut. All this while, Gautam Navlakha and Anand Teltumbde exhausted all legal options to evade arrest, as the judiciary looked on, condoning the deprivation of the activists’ liberty and denying their bail applications, sometimes making gestures that filled the activists’ legal team with hope but ultimately continuing the farce that is the Bhima-Koregaon travesty.
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Also read part one: Bhima Koregaon: Marking three years since the first arrest (June 7, 2021)
Stan Swamy, The Majesty Of Law And The Tenets Of Justice
Drawing by Arun Ferreira
Outlook / by Puneet Nicholas Yadav
At 84 years of age, Stan Swamy is the oldest among the 16 accused in the Bhima Koregaon case and, arguably, the oldest prison inmate across the country facing non-bailable charges under the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
Eight months after he was arrested and locked up in Navi Mumbai’s Taloja Jail, Stan Swamy – octogenarian Jesuit priest, tribal rights activist, public intellectual, Parkinson’s patient; and in the eyes of the BJP-led central government, an enemy of the State – is now undergoing treatment at Mumbai’s Holy Family Hospital for Covid.
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Video: IN PRISON FOR DREAMING OF EQUALITY?
hindi + en | 1h56min | 2021
Speakers: Kavita Srivastava, Nivedita Menon, Kavita Krishnan, Meera Sanghamitra, Sabika Naqvi, Lara Jesani; Moderated by Banojyotsna Lahiri.
The Month of May marks one year of arrest of equal citizenship activists Natasha Narwal and Devangana Kalita and 1000 days of wrongful incarceration of Human Rights lawyer Sudha Bhardwaj. All three are fearless voices of dissent, dreamers of a equitable and just tomorrow.
Join this session honouring all the brave and unapologetic women who refuse to be silenced despite the continuous intimidation by this fascist regime and resist the institutionalized discrimination against women.
Watch @ PUCL FB page
Crushing Dissent During India’s Lockdown
Towards Freedom / by Rishabh Jain
“The very thought of him having to plead to jail authorities regarding a basic service like clean water to wash his swelled eye still gives me anxiety attacks,” says Jenny Rowena, wife of Hany Babu.
Babu, a 55-year-old Delhi University professor, is among many political prisoners who have been detained after having been charged under a draconian Indian law, the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).
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Also read/watch: Repeal UAPA – Persecution by Prosecution. Three Day consultation by PUCL in January 2021