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Category: Repression

All the Times the Supreme Court Turned a Nelson’s Eye to Injustice

All the Times the Supreme Court Turned a Nelson’s Eye to Injustice

Drawing by Arun Ferreira

The Wire / by Markandey Katju and Janhvi Prakash

It must be regrettably said that the judiciary has largely surrendered before the political executive.
The words ‘Thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting’, from the Bible (Daniel:5:27), were used by Sir Winston Churchill in 1938 to criticise Neville Chamberlain, the then British prime minister, for signing the shameful Munich Pact with Hitler. The same words could aptly be used for the Indian Supreme Court too, for its recent dismal, distressing, disheartening and discomfiting performances in repeatedly failing to protect the fundamental rights of the Indian people – which is its sacred and solemn duty under the constitution.
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Police seek FBI help in retrieving data from disk

Police seek FBI help in retrieving data from disk

Mumbai Mirror / by Abhishek Sharan

Decision comes after three labs in the country failed to get anything from the damaged disk.
The Pune police will take forensic help from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to retrieve data from a damaged hard disk seized last August from an accused in the January 2018 Elgar Parishad case, sources said on Wednesday.
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More holes emerge in Pune Police’s rationale for arresting activists

More holes emerge in Pune Police’s rationale for arresting activists

Pic: Firstpost

Firstpost / by MN Parth

  • On 20 April, 2018, the Pune Police sent the hard drives and memory cards it confiscated from Wilson’s home to the forensic lab with a detailed questionnaire.
  • When the forensic report of Wilson’s devices arrived on 5 November, it did not explicitly say the evidence had been tampered with. It did not even say it was not tampered with.
  • Since the Bhima Koregaon riots took place, observers have repeatedly questioned the veracity and intent of the investigation.

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Thackeray to form a panel to probe police action against activists?

Thackeray to form a panel to probe police action against activists?

The Free Press Journal / by Sanjay Jog

Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray may form a panel to probe the arrests of activists in connection with Elgar Parishad action by the Pune police. Activists Rona Wilson, Shoma Sen, Surendra Gadling, Mahesh Raut, Varavara Rao and Sudhir Dhavle, who were arrested, were accused of having Maoist links. Thackeray has sought details regarding the ongoing court cases from the home department.
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Fadnavis: Same activists were arrested when Cong-NCP was in power

Fadnavis: Same activists were arrested when Cong-NCP was in power

The Indian Express / by Express News Service

Expressing surprise at the comments of NCP chief Sharad Pawar on the arrests of activists in the Elgaar Parishad case, former Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on Monday said many of these activists had been arrested and charged for similar offences when the Congress-NCP government was in power in the state and the Centre.
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Letters from jail: Elgaar Parishad detainees pen thoughts and experiences

Letters from jail: Elgaar Parishad detainees pen thoughts and experiences

Paintings by Arun Ferreira

The Indian Express / by Seema Chishti

The letters, which The Indian Express has access to, reveal a slice of their lives behind bars. Some talk about when they can possibly see the gallows, some are abstract ruminations on life and freedom, while some dwell on the circumstances of their arrest and merits of the case.
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The widening fissure in India’s rule of law

The widening fissure in India’s rule of law

The Hindu / by Gautam Bhatia

Last month, the news website Scroll revealed that more than 10,000 people in the Khunti district of Jharkhand had been chargesheeted by the police for sedition. These people are overwhelmingly Adivasis. Then, in early December, a judicial probe completed a seven-year long investigation, finding that a so-called encounter of “Maoists” in Chhattisgarh by security forces, in 2012, had been a “fake encounter” all along. The people killed had not been Maoists, but innocent villagers.
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Bhima Koregaon accused write to human rights panel

Bhima Koregaon accused write to human rights panel

The Hindu / by Sonam Saigal

Letter condemns ‘environment of fear promoted by State’
On International Human Rights Day on Tuesday, all nine accused in the Bhima Koregaon violence wrote to the chairperson of the State Human Rights Commission, “condemning the environment of fear and criminalisation promoted by the State wherein the human rights of Indian citizens and especially those of human rights defenders who are critical of State policies are under threat.”
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Demolishing Human Rights in India

Demolishing Human Rights in India

Sabrang India / by Fr Cedric Prakash

This past year from December 2018, had two significant 70th anniversaries: first, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (10 December 1948) and then, of the promulgation of the Constitution of India (November 26, 2019). It is quite certain that the makers of the Indian Constitution took inspiration from the UDHR. Strangely enough, as if on cue, everything possible is done by the powers that control the destiny of the nation, to demolish human rights and the values enshrined in the Constitution!
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Chhattisgarh: Story of another ‘encounter’

Chhattisgarh: Story of another ‘encounter’

The Indian Express / by Dipankar Ghose

On June 28, 2012, 17 people were killed in Chhattisgarh in what was then called “the biggest Maoist encounter”. With a judicial commission now punching holes in the official version of the incident, The Indian Express travels to Sarkeguda and finds that while much has changed in these years, some things haven’t — the memories of that night, and the wounds that refuse to heal.
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