Browsed by
Category: Repression

Mockery being made of right to privacy: Kabir Kala Manch activist

Mockery being made of right to privacy: Kabir Kala Manch activist

The Hindu / by Shoumojit Banerjee

Canada-based Citizen Lab advised Kabir Kala Manch activist Rupali Jadhav to change Android phone.
Rupali Jadhav (32), an activist of the Kabir Kala Manch (KKM) – a predominantly Dalit and working class troupe using protest music — was contacted through WhatsApp by the Canada-based Citizen Lab on October 28.
Read more

Video: WhatsApp, Big Brother And Bhima Koregaon

Video: WhatsApp, Big Brother And Bhima Koregaon


en | 22 min | 2019

The Wire / #BeyondTheHeadlines with Siddharth Varadarajan

Thanks to WhatsApp taking on the Israeli firm NSO for installing the ‘Pegasus’ malware on rights activists around the world, India’s dirty surveillance secrets are slowly tumbling out. In this episode of Beyond the Headlines, Siddharth Varadarajan looks at the manner in which individuals connected to the Bhima Koregaon case have been targeted and asks what the legal basis for this snooping is?
Watch video

Bela Bhatia, Anand Teltumbde, Shalini Gera among Indians snooped on using Israeli spyware

Bela Bhatia, Anand Teltumbde, Shalini Gera among Indians snooped on using Israeli spyware

Newslaundry / by Prateek Goyal

WhatsApp has revealed that the messaging app was used to spy on at least two dozen journalists and human rights activists, likely by the Indian government.
In a bombshell revelation, WhatsApp has revealed that the messaging app was used to spy on at least two dozen Indian journalists and human rights activists earlier this year, The Indian Express reported on Thursday.
Read more

Pegasus Spyware: Lawyer Defending Bhima-Koregaon Activists Received Warning from WhatsApp

Pegasus Spyware: Lawyer Defending Bhima-Koregaon Activists Received Warning from WhatsApp

The Wire / by Sukanya Shantha

Nihalsing Rathod says he was first contacted by CitizenLab researchers, who have done work on Pegasus, and then later by WhatsApp about his phone being compromised.
Mumbai: Over the last two years, Nagpur-based human rights lawyer Nihalsing Rathod has received receiving calls on WhatsApp from unknown numbers. These calls would be made from international numbers, and would invariably turn out to be a group call.
Read more

WhatsApp spyware was used against Bhima Koregaon accused to plant evidence, claims Nagpur lawyer

WhatsApp spyware was used against Bhima Koregaon accused to plant evidence, claims Nagpur lawyer

Scroll.in / by Scroll Staff

Nihalsing Rathod and Adivasi rights activist Bela Bhatia were among the targets of the security breach notified about the problem by the messaging platform.
The incriminatory letters cited as evidence in the Bhima Koregaon case may have been planted by government agencies through a spyware that targeted Indian journalists and human rights activists on WhatsApp, Nagpur-based advocate Nihalsing Rathod told Scroll.in on Thursday.
Read more

Punishing dissent: NCRB data shows why sedition must go

Punishing dissent: NCRB data shows why sedition must go


Drawing by Arun Ferreira

The Financial Express / by The Financial Express

Cases recorded as offences against the state in the National Crime Records Bureau’s (NCRB’s) latest Crime in India Statistics report (for 2017)—such offences were separately recorded by NCRB only since 2014—saw a jump of 23%, from 6,986 cases registered in 2016 to 9,013 registered in 2016.
Read more

Father Stan Swamy’s property attached

Father Stan Swamy’s property attached

The Telegraph / by Raj Kumar

Ranchi: Police had to contend with a table, a steel almirah, three chairs and a bed
The police on Monday attached the property of priest-activist Father Stan Swamy at his Namkum home, as he had not appeared in court over a case concerning a Facebook post last year that upheld the demand of Sarna tribals for their own code in the Census.
Read more

‘My life hangs by a thread’: Activist Stan Swamy on Bhima Koregaon, Adivasi resistance in Jharkhand

‘My life hangs by a thread’: Activist Stan Swamy on Bhima Koregaon, Adivasi resistance in Jharkhand

Scroll.in / by Sneha Philip & Smarnita Shetty

Criminal justice procedures are being misused to repress undertrials in the state’s jails who are falsely accused of being Maoists.
In this interview Swamy discusses the emergence and growth of people’s movements, his work with young Adivasi undertrials who are falsely accused of being Maoists, the difficult choices that confront young Adivasis today and the ongoing case against him in connection with the Bhima Koregaon caste clashes near Pune in 2018.
Read more

A grim situation

A grim situation

Millenniumpost / by Editorial Board

Maoism has been a persistent threat to India’s internal security and any effort to contain the menace is more than necessary. But recent times, however, have seen an apparent evolution of this idea to include unsuitable rebels and questioning voices that are boldly directed at the establishment. The Bhima Koregaon case comes back to highlight with the September 10 incident when a team of Pune police raided the home of Delhi University Associate Professor Hany Babu M T in Noida for more than six hours in connection with the Bhima Koregaon violence case.
Read more