Repression – Page 29 – free them all

The Dissenting and Defiant Citizen Is Indian of the Year / The Cost of Voicing Dissent

26/12/2020 Maya

The Dissenting and Defiant Citizen Is Indian of the Year

26/12/2020

The Wire / by Sidharth Bhatia

Whether at Shaheen Bagh or on the highways outside Delhi, Indians are standing up for dignity and rights for all.
In an environment where dissidence is considered an act of rebellion, even sedition, where people are thrown into jail for standing up for rights, and where even a cartoon or a joke can get the politicians riled up, some Indians have let it be known that they will not get cowed down. Especially when it comes to matters of dignity and livelihood.
Read more

The cost of voicing dissent: UAPA against G.N. Saibaba, Gautam Navlakha, Father Stan Swamy and others

26/12/2020

Countercurrents / by Kunal Pant

… UAPA has been disproportionately targeted against minorities (Muslims, Dalits, Adivasis), activists, human rights defenders and political opponents… UAPA has been disproportionately targeted against minorities (Muslims, Dalits, Adivasis), activists, human rights defenders and political opponents… Cases in point are Sudhir Dhawale, Surendra Gadling, Shoma Sen, Mahesh Raut, and Rona Wilson – all Dalit activists – allegedly for being associated with the “Elgar Parishad.” (Bhima Koregaon).
Read more

A Lookback At Arrests Made Under The UAPA

25/12/2020

Mumbai Live / by Mumbai Live Team

As 2020 nears towards the end, we look back at three of the arrests that have been made under the anti-terror law by the name Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), introduced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Read more

Academic freedom is under attack in Modi’s India

18/12/2020 Rani

Aljazeera / by Aman Abhishek

The ongoing unlawful imprisonment of Professor Anand Teltumbde and numerous other dissident scholars is a clear reflection of the bleak state of academic freedom in India.
Last year I had the opportunity to listen to the prominent Indian intellectual and author, Anand Teltumbde, speak at an academic conference in Delhi. At one point in his speech, he got teary-eyed and told the audience that he has lost all hope because India’s transformation into a “Hindu nation” under Prime Minister Narendra Modi appears complete.
Read more

Varavara Rao in Prison: Maoists and Other Enemies of the Indian State

18/12/2020 Rani

VERSO / by Aditya Bahl

Aditya Bahl protests against the continued imprisonment of the Marxist poet, Varavara Rao, and examines how the current cycle of rightwing repression is part of a much longer political history, shaped by the changing relationship between the Indian state and capitalism.
In Captive Imagination, a collection of essays written in the prison during the late 1980s, Varavara Rao, the Telugu poet and a leading Maoist ideologue in India, narrates a rather uncanny state of affairs.
Read more

When saints are in prison: Custody as a form of torture

12/12/2020 Rani

The Quint / by Kaleeswaram Raj

Incarceration is not mere curtailment of freedom. It is a diminution of human dignity. And today, one is forced to think that individual dignity in India is in deep crisis.
It is amazing to watch the Supreme Court building that symbolises a wonderful architectural tradition. It is more so when one looks at the flock of birds that fly over the court’s tomb, epitomising universal liberty, a theme that the Constitution tried to imbibe. It contains provisions for certain fundamental rights even for non-citizens. Article 21 promises right to life and personal liberty to ‘any person’. The court has interpreted life to always mean dignified life.
Read more

Organisers of Elgar Parishad say accused are denied basic human rights

11/12/2020 Rani

The Hindu / by Sonam Saigal

On Human Rights Day, retired judges say intellectuals have been implicated for speaking against the government.
It is close to three years that intellectuals, activists and lawyers were arrested in the Bhima Koregaon violence case. Retired judges, who organised the Elghar Parishad event, say, “All those accused in the case are not connected with it but they have been implicated because they have spoken against the government. They are denied basic human rights.”
Read more

Taloja jail says new spectacles given to Navlakha; govt to probe / Making a spectacle

11/12/2020 Rani

Drawing by Arun Ferreira

Taloja jail says new spectacles given to Navlakha; govt to probe

11/12/2020

The Indian Express / by Sadaf Modak

Navlakha (69), who was arrested by the NIA, had told his partner Sahba Husain that his spectacles were stolen in the jail.
Taloja Central Jail authorities said a new pair of spectacles has been made and handed over to activist Gautam Navlakha, lodged in the prison in connection to the Elgaar Parishad case, on Thursday.
Read more

Making a spectacle

11/12/2020

The Indian Express / by Indian Express Editorial

Bombay HC is right to underline the need for dignity for undertrials. Speedy justice must also be made a priority.
The weeks that it took for a straw and a sipper to reach an 83-year-old tribal rights activist afflicted with Parkinson’s; the time it took for authorities in a Mumbai jail to turn away a pair of spectacles meant for a civil rights activist — both, among many other instances, are a measure of the gap between human dignity and the justice system.
Read more

From Segregation to Labour, Manu’s Caste Law Governs the Indian Prison System

10/12/2020

The Wire / by Sukanya Shantha

In several states, prison manuals still dictate that labour within the prison should be assigned on the basis of caste.
On his first day at the Alwar district prison, Ajay Kumar* was gearing up for the worst. Torture, stale food, biting cold and harsh labour – Bollywood had already acquainted him with the grisly realities of jails. “Gunah batao (Tell me your crime),” a police constable, placed at the undertrial (UT) section, asked him as soon as he was escorted inside a tall iron gateway.
Ajay had barely mumbled something, when the constable snapped, “Kaun jaati (Which caste)?” Unsure, Ajay paused and then hesitantly said, “Rajak”.
Read more

The Memory Keepers Of India’s Imprisoned Intellectuals

09/12/2020 Rani

Bloomberg Quint / by Priya Ramani

Varavara Rao is writing poems again. This news, from his nephew N Venugopal is shared with joy. After months of teetering precariously between life and death in Mumbai’s Taloja jail, delirious, bedridden, with an unchanged catheter, and no trained attendants, the Bombay High Court, on Nov. 18, ordered immediate medical attention for Rao, one of the country’s most prolific public intellectuals. The court also okayed family visits.
Read more

Outcry over Jesuit priest Stan Swamy’s arrest tests Indian authorities’ anti-terror sweep

08/12/2020 Rani

Religion News Service / by Priyadarshini Sen

Faith has never been only sacramental for 83-year-old Jesuit priest the Rev. Stan Swamy, but, rather, it has been a conduit to empower the poor and marginalized. That stance, captured in his motto, “Faith that does justice,” has led to his arrest by the National Investigative Agency, India’s counterterrorism task force.
Read more

Law is No Longer About Justice But is Reimagined as a Tool of Terror and Harassment

04/12/2020 Maya

The Leaflet / by Shiv Visvanathan

Each citizen, as Havel once said about totalitarianism, must become iconic of protest from body language to symbolism. When indifference and prejudice becomes a monstrosity of legal indifference, civil society must reinvent democracy as a new politics of caring, says Shiv Visvanathan.
Read more

Video: Why is UAPA a draconian law?

02/12/2020 Rani

en | 13:04min | 2020

Newslaundry / by Newslaundry Team

You may lately have come across stories of activists and journalists being charged under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, or UAPA. The UAPA is an anti-terrorism law which has been used against activists associated with the Bhima-Koregaon movement, the citizenship law protesters, and even a journalist on his way to cover the Hathras rape and murder…
Meghnad S takes you through the history of the UAPA, its evolution from an anti-secession legislation to being an anti-terrorism law, and how it has been misused by successive governments.
Watch video