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Category: Repression

Marking 45 years since the Emergency, Resolve to Strengthen the Struggle Against State Repression

Marking 45 years since the Emergency, Resolve to Strengthen the Struggle Against State Repression

By Campaign Against State Repression

45 years prior to today, on June 26th 1975, the country awoke to a declaration of Internal Emergency. Arguably one of the darkest days in the country’s history post 1947, Emergency Rule imposed by the then central government led by Indira Gandhi’s faction of the Indian National Congress (INC) was characterised by a near complete suspension of basic democratic rights and targeted attacks on all progressive and democratic forces and organisations.
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Chhattisgarh PUCL Calls for the Immediate Roll Back of the Undeclared Emergency

Chhattisgarh PUCL Calls for the Immediate Roll Back of the Undeclared Emergency


Drawing by Arun Ferreira

By People’s Union for Civil Liberties – Chhattisgarh

Release All Political Prisoners!
Repeal Draconian Laws!
Stop Gagging the Media!

June 25th, 2020: On this day in 1975, the then-Indian Government imposed the State of Emergency in India, suspending all fundamental rights and commencing one of the darkest periods of Indian democracy. Today, after a span of forty-five years, we the people of India find ourselves in a similar situation, living in a de facto state of emergency, which has not been officially declared, where scores of ordinary citizens to who dared to criticize the government are being arbitrarily arrested under draconian laws meant only for rarest cases of international terror. The Chhattisgarh chapter of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties is observing this day as the Anti-Emergency Day –to demand the release of arrested human rights workers, and to renew our pledge to uphold the Constitution of India, with all its promises of freedom and equality, in its true spirit. …

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How Amnesty investigated the spying campaign against Bhima Koregaon activists

How Amnesty investigated the spying campaign against Bhima Koregaon activists

MediaNama / by Aditi Agrawal

On June 16, MediaNama conducted a telephonic interview with Etienne Maynier, a technologist at Amnesty International, who was part of the team that investigated the coordinated spyware attack against at least nine human rights activists in India, eight of whom have called for the release of eleven activists arrested in the Bhima Koregaon case.
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Also Read: Human Rights Defenders Targeted by a Coordinated Spyware Operation

Interview with Maaysha: Please release my mother, Sudha Bharadwaj

Interview with Maaysha: Please release my mother, Sudha Bharadwaj

Rediff.com / by Prasanna D Zore

On August 28, 2020, the respected lawyer and human rights activist Sudha Bharadwaj will complete two years in jail …
“If somebody is working for poor people, then does it mean they are criminals?”, Maaysha, Bharadwaj’s daughter who got to speak with her mother after four months on June 9, asks Prasanna D Zore/Rediff.com.
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Spyware attacks on rights defenders show continuing attempt to fix case

Spyware attacks on rights defenders show continuing attempt to fix case

Scroll.in / by Sruthisagar Yamunan

On Monday, an Amnesty International report, put together with digital activist group Citizens Lab, pointed to targeted spyware attacks last year against nine human rights defenders who were helping the people arrested in the Bhima Koregaon case in Maharashtra.
The report is the latest chapter in a case in which it seems an array of forces are at work to plant evidence against 11 human rights activists and lawyers arrested in connection with violence that erupted between Marathas and Dalits in the village of Bhima Koregaon outside Pune on January 1, 2018.
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Things Getting Really Bad in Overcrowded Maharashtra Prisons

Things Getting Really Bad in Overcrowded Maharashtra Prisons

Newsclick / by Parth MN

Even after 2 deceased inmates were found COVID-19 positive, testing is not being done in Taloja where rights activists, mostly 60+, arrested in the Bhima Koregaon case have been lodged.
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OF 269 PRISON INMATES WHO TESTED POSITIVE IN MAHARASHTRA, 115 RECOVERED

The Hindu / by Sonam Saigal

As of June 13, 17, 695 screenings and 1681 swab tests were conducted in 10 Central Prisons in Maharashtra and in the Additional Director General, Prisons (ADGP) office of which 269 tested positive, 115 recovered and four died, the Bombay High Court was informed on Monday.
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The Day Justice Hosbet Suresh Was Threatened With Arrest

The Day Justice Hosbet Suresh Was Threatened With Arrest

The Wire / by Susan Abraham

The police’s relentless pursuit of human rights activists in connection with the Bhima Koregaon violence did not spare judges either.
The Bhima Koregaon case, in which 11 prominent human rights activists, lawyers and academics languish behind bars, that too during a pandemic, has now become the template for similar arrests taking place in different parts of the country 2014 under the Narendra Modi-Amit Shah regime.
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Human Rights Defenders Targeted by a Coordinated Spyware Operation

Human Rights Defenders Targeted by a Coordinated Spyware Operation

Amnesty International / By Amnesty Internatioanl & Citizen Lab

Amnesty International and the Citizen Lab have uncovered a coordinated spyware campaign targeting at least nine human rights defenders (HRDs) in India. Eight of the nine HRDs have been calling for the release of other prominent activists, popularly known as the Bhima Koregaon 11, most of whom have been imprisoned in Maharashtra, India since 2018.
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Also Read: Human Rights Defenders Targeted by a Coordinated Spyware Operation

After NIA Chargesheet Called it Criminal, Twitter Responds with #LalSalaamComrade

After NIA Chargesheet Called it Criminal, Twitter Responds with #LalSalaamComrade

Newsclick / by Newsclick Report

Registering their protest against an increasingly “authoritarian” state, users on social media in India used the hashtag #LalSalaamComrade on Twitter this evening. The hashtag also comes about days after the National Investigation Agency (NIA) held that the use of “lal salam” and “comrade” meant that one is a Maoist.
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Selection of posters @ #LalSalaamComrade (click to enlarge)