Repression – Page 26 – free them all

Andhra govt, Centre ‘collude’ to repeat Bhima Koregaon type case against rights activists

11/04/2021 Rani

Drawing by Arun Ferreira

Andhra govt, Centre ‘collude’ to repeat Bhima Koregaon type case against rights activists

11/04/2021

Counterview / by Counterview Desk

In a comprehensive statement, running into about 3,500 words, India’s premier human rights organisation, People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), even as condemning the recent “unprecedented attack” on rights activists by the Andhra Pradesh government, with the Centre’s National Investigation Agency (NIA) and stood in “solidarity”, has said that the main aim of the “witch hunt” is to silence dissent.
Signed by Ravi Kiran Jain and Dr V Suresh, respectively President and General Secretary of PUCL, the statement, drawing a parallel with the Bhima Koregaon case, said, this time too the NIA cover was used to level the allegation that the activists were all supporters and “front organisations” of Maoists.
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NIA Raids 33 Activists in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana

10/04/2021

The Leaflet / by The Leaflet

On 31st March & 1st April 2021, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) raided the homes of at least 33 human rights and civil liberties activists, members of women’s groups, Dalit organizations, labor unions, and social and cultural movements in 31 locations spread across Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. The NIA alleged that the activists were all supporters and “front organizations” of Maoists. These raids resemble the ones carried out in the Bhima Koregoan case….
In the past few years, the NIA has frequently stepped in to take control of UAPA cases in states which are not governed by the BJP.
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Also Read: NIA takes over Andhra probe against activists (Hindustan Times, March 2021)

Al report slams India / Excerpts: US State Dept Report Records Increasing Use of UAPA in India

08/04/2021 Maya

Drawing by Arun Ferreira

Amnesty International report slams India

08/04/2021

Pakobserver / by News Desk

The London-based rights watchdog, Amnesty International has slammed India for its clampdown on civil liberties in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir as well as punitive lockdown in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, use of force against the anti-CAA (Citizenship (Amendment) Act) protests, farmers’ protests and handling of Delhi riots.
… On arbitrary arrests and detentions, the Amnesty International said that seven human rights activists – Father Stan Swamy, Jyoti Raghoba Jagtap, Sagar Tatyaram Gorkhe, Ramesh Murlidhar Gaichor, Hany Babu, Gautam Navlakha and Anand Teltumbde – were arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) for their alleged involvement in violence during the Bhima Koregaon celebrations near the city of Pune in 2018.
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Full report: AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL REPORT 2020/21: THE STATE OF THE WORLD’S HUMAN RIGHTS (April 2021)

Excerpts: US State Dept Report Records Increasing Use of UAPA by Indian Government

05/04/2021

The Wire / by The Wire Staff

The report cites the conditions in which the incarcerations of a pregnant Safoora Zargar, and ageing activists Varavara Rao, Sudha Bharadwaj and Stan Swamy progressed.
The US state department released the 2020 human rights report last week, accompanied by renewed rhetoric of putting emphasis on human rights at the heart of American diplomacy.
From the India chapter, here are excerpts from the report on the use of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) from its section on ‘Arrest Procedures and Treatment of Detainees’.
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Indian legal system produces unlawful laws

04/04/2021 Rani

Drawing by Arun Ferreira

Pakistan Today / by Shazia Cheema

The laws based on personal agenda to maintain and retain power have paved the way for civil unrest.
Law and order have always perceived as a relative situation although it meant to serve the purpose of maintaining order and peace, it has been observed that laws are not always enough to keep harmony in society. Law made by man for man has a coherent tendency to create craves between state and society.
The textbook example of that is Indian laws named UAPA, TADA, and POTA. These three laws created for the safety of society have been immensely used to subjugate the population of India and have been criticised by the civil society that named these laws as “Draconian Laws”.
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Laws Around Electronic Evidence Compromise India’s Criminal Justice System

02/04/2021 Maya

article14 / by Mani Chander

Police and investigative agencies currently claim unfettered access to your WhatsApp, private emails or chats with your doctor, lawyer or psychologist. Can they force you to unlock your phone and disclose passwords? In the absence of clear laws, they do what they wish.
…
Seize All You Can? The Bhima-Koregaon Case
Recent cases indicate that investigating agencies often search and seize records without demonstrating probable cause, necessity or proportionality.
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Video: Bhima Koregaon accused continue to wait for bail

30/03/2021 Maya

InOldNews / by InOldNews

Vira Sathidar, a poet, writer, activist, and also one of the editors of a radical Anti-Caste Marathi Magazine ‘Vidrohi’ talks about incarceration of Sudhir Dhawale, founder of Vidrohi. Sudhir Dhawale along with two other activists- Surendra Gadhling and Prof. Shoma Sen were arrested by Police from Nagpur and are still in jail. These were among the first few arrests of Human rights activists by Modi Government under charges of being involved in Bhima Koregaon Violence and in a plot to assassinate PM Modi. The magazine stopped its publication due to various reasons, one being the constant threat of police surveillance.
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NIA takes over Andhra probe against activists

28/03/2021 Rani

NIA takes over Andhra probe against activists

28/03/2021

Hindustan Times / by Neeraj Chauhan, New Delhi

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has taken over an Andhra Pradesh police probe against 64 persons including known Adivasi, Dalit and human rights activists in southern India such as VS Krishna, Chiluka Chandrasekhar and Duddu Prabhakar for their alleged links with Maoists, people familiar with the development said…
Kavita Srivastava from the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) said: “Human rights activists are being deliberately targeted and silenced in this country. Firstly, the FIR filed on the basis of fabricated allegations was uncalled for, and now the NIA taking over the case is really sinister. That’s not acceptable. We all know what NIA has done in Bhima-Koregaon case. PUCL demands that this FIR should be quashed.”
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Is Ignoring Criticism of Human Rights Abuse Affecting India’s Image?

25/03/2021 Rani

The Leaflet / by Arun Srivastava

The government’s intolerance of criticism by foreign institutions’ of its failure to listen to the global concern of the sharp rise in the violation of human rights and its persistent unwillingness to take action against the violators leading to the erosion of the democratic values in the country, has motivated lawmakers of western countries to push a bill in their respective parliaments decrying the claim of the Modi government of India being a democratic country.
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S.M. Mushrif: Secularists should challenge UAPA in Supreme Court

22/03/2021 Rani

Frontline / by Ziya Us Salam

(Print edition: April 9, 2021)
Interview with S.M. Mushrif, former Inspector General of Police, Maharashtra.
… In the light of Bhima Koregaon and the anti-Citizenship [Amendment] Act protests in Delhi and elsewhere, arbitrary arrests have been made under the UAPA. Many professors, students, poets have been incarcerated for long. Is the law supposed to safeguard the common man or frighten him?
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Second Elgaar Parishad: Sharjeel Usmani appears before Pune police for second time

18/03/2021 Rani

Poster, Jan 2021

Sharjeel Usmani appears before Pune police for second time in ‘objectionable speech’ case

18/03/2021

The Indian Express / by Express News Service

Usmani was one of the speakers at the event organised at the Ganesh Kala Krida Manch in Pune on January 30 by the ‘Bhima Koregaon Shaurya Din Prerna Abhiyaan’.
Former Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) student leader Sharjeel Usmani, who has been booked for allegedly delivering an objectionable speech at ‘Elgaar Parishad 2021’ on January 30, appeared before Pune City Police for the second time in this case on Thursday.
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Second Elgaar Parishad: govt. to take no coercive action against Sharjeel Usmani

18/03/2021

The Hindu / Special Correspondent

Former AMU student has moved HC seeking to quash FIR.
The Bombay High Court on Monday recorded the statement by the Maharashtra government that it would not take any coercive action against Sharjeel Usmani, an alumnus of Aligarh Muslim University, as long as he appeared before the Pune police for allegedly making objectionable statements at the second Elgaar Parishad.
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Also read: The Making Of Sharjeel Usmani and His Speech At Elgar Parishad (Feb 2021)

The ‘Buts’ To Freedom Of Speech In India / Why Bail to Vara Vara Rao Augurs Well for Indian Democracy

17/03/2021 Rani

The BJP’s Toolkit Is Not Working That Well

17/03/2021

The Wire / by Amit Shrivastava

Despite the BJP-RSS’s repression tactics having a terrifying and chilling effect on the right to protest, two of India’s largest movements have taken shape since 2019.
By now, it’s fairly obvious that the NDA government has a standard toolkit for dealing with what it regards as troublesome movements. The script goes like this …
The police stand on the sidelines as first propaganda and then violence is unleashed by either the Sangh parivar organisations or others. We’ve now seen this in JNU (in 2016 and again in 2020), in Bhima Koregaon, in the Republic Day incidents, and most terrible of all, in the Delhi killings of February 2020.
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The ‘Buts’ To Freedom Of Speech In India

17/03/2021

Feminism India / by Guest Writer

A trembling, disillusioned father told his daughter to flee her homeland for her safety. This seems like a plot taken straight from a classic wartime story fraught with separation and grief. In reality, such was the conversation my friend had with her father following the unlawful arrests of activists. The Disha Ravi toolkit case was the last straw.
The ‘buts’ to the freedom of speech in India only seem to point to a dictatorial reality, much like that of Airstrip One in George Orwell’s 1984, where even the mere thought of protest is met with prosecution.
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Why Bail to Vara Vara Rao Augurs Well for Indian Democracy

16/03/2021

NewsClick / by Ajay Gudavarthy

Collective rights cannot remain intact without a collective spirit. The Bombay High Court has shown such compassion lives on in India.
It restores faith in the judiciary and augurs well for Indian democracy that the Bombay High Court has granted bail to revolutionary poet VV Rao on medical grounds. In a sense, the current regime and VV, as he is known among friends, are on opposite ends of the political spectrum.
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