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Category: Repression

Draconian Laws Promoting Authoritarian Rule Should Be Repealed

Draconian Laws Promoting Authoritarian Rule Should Be Repealed

Poster campaign by PUDR || PUDR welcomes bail to civil rights activist Gautam Navlakha (pudr.org / May 15, 2024)

Draconian Laws Promoting Authoritarian Rule Should Be Repealed

19/05/2024

Peoples Democracy / by G Ramakrishnan CPI(M)

… After BJP came to power in 2014, the situation in our country has gone from bad to worse. The situation now is akin to an undeclared emergency. The last ten years of the Modi government have seen unprecedented attack on democracy and democratic rights. The lawless laws, Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), National Security Act (NSA), Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and the central Agencies like the Enforcement Directorate (ED), CBI and Income Tax department have been used to target the leaders of the opposition parties and those who criticise and oppose the policies of the Modi government at the centre.
Read more

Also read:
▪ Five years behind bars for five activists (PUDR / June 2023)
▪ CASR: Release activists incarcerated in Bhima Koregaon Case (Countercurrents / June 2023)
▪ UAPA – CRIMINALISING DISSENT AND STATE TERROR – Study of UAPA Abuse in India, 2009-2022 (PUCL / Sep 2022). Download report

Info warfare, ‘Kashmir cell’, Maoists, Akhlaq killing find mention in Delhi Police’s NewsClick chargesheet

Info warfare, ‘Kashmir cell’, Maoists, Akhlaq killing find mention in Delhi Police’s NewsClick chargesheet

Info warfare, ‘Kashmir cell’, Maoists, Akhlaq killing find mention in Delhi Police’s NewsClick chargesheet

02/05/2024

The Print / by Bismee Taskin

In the “first” manifestations of the “conspiracy” in email trails between Shanghai-based American tech mogul Neville Roy Singham and NewsClick founder Prabir Purkayastha, it has been found that “special emphasis” was laid on “an alternative vision”, “allying with separatists” and “creating a media unit”, according to the Delhi Police chargesheet in the Newsclick case.
The names of civil right activists Harsh Mander, Gautam Navlakha and Teesta Setalvad as well as those of members of the Chinese Communist Party, the Students’ Federation of India and a shareholder of NewsClick are mentioned in the document.
Read more

‘Funded LeT & Maoists, distributed cash among CAA rioters’ – Delhi Police chargesheet against NewsClick

01/05/2024

The Print / by Bismee Taskin

In 8,000 page chargesheet, police have accused NewsClick & founder Prabir Purkayastha of ‘terror financing’, largely based on statements by protected witnesses. Both charged under UAPA.
Providing funding to Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Left-Wing Extremists (LWE) and distributing cash among “rioters” associated with the 2019 protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) – these are the allegations against NewsClick founder and editor-in-chief Prabir Purkayastha and activist Gautam Navlakha in the chargesheet filed by Delhi Police in the alleged NewsClick case last month.
Read more

NewsClick Rejects Absurd, Baseless Allegations in Delhi Police Chargesheet

01/05/2024

Newsclick / by Newsclick Team

NewsClick and Prabir Purkyastha have not been involved in any terrorist act. Nor is there any evidence for the same. Prabir does not have links to any terrorist group.
Several reports have appeared in the media reproducing allegations from the Delhi Police’s chargesheet against NewsClick and its Editor-in-Chief Prabir Purkayastha. Many of these reports have been published without seeking a response from NewsClick.
We have consistently maintained that we do not seek a media trial; that we do not want to discuss matters that are sub judice; and that we have full faith in the judicial process. However, given the gravity, and too often, the sheer absurdity, of the allegations, we would like to state the following.
Read full statement

Also read:
▪ ‘NewsClick’ case: Gautam Navlakha questioned by Delhi Police (Scroll.in / Dec 2023)
▪ This Is the Biggest Crackdown on the Indian Press by the Indian State (The Wire / Oct 2023)

A Mango Republic – The arrest and incarceration of the multitude of people …

A Mango Republic – The arrest and incarceration of the multitude of people …

Campaign, 2020

The Wire / by Natasha Narwal

The arrest and incarceration of the multitude of people languishing in our prisons is as political as that of Kejriwal. How many mangoes will it take to get them out?
With the heat waves and rising mercury, the season of mango is here. But this season, mango is not just a fruit, it also seems to be a key conspirator in the plot to get Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal out of Tihar Jail. The chargesheet is still awaited in the case, but its good name has been dragged through the mud. What’s a mango supposed to do?
Behind this comedy of errors lies the horror of dismantling of Indian democracy.
Kejriwal’s arrest and incarceration is a watershed moment marking the crisis of democracy and free and fair elections in the country. But this moment has long been in the making and all those who want to fight for a democratic future must confront this history.
Read more

Also read:
▪ India – Fundamental Freedoms Deteriorate Further in Modi’s Second Term (CIVICUS / April 2024)
▪ Five Questions on the Shameful Proceedings Against Natasha Narwal, Devangana Kalita, Asif Iqbal (The Wire / Jun 2023)
▪ The Uses (and Abuses) of Investigative Agencies (The Wire / Nov 2022)
▪ Maharashtra is adding activists to a secret list of the enemies of state (Newslaundry / July 2021)
▪ How Governments Avoid Due Process by Declaring Groups as ‘Front Organisations’ of Banned Entities (The Wire / Sep 2020)

Space for Civil Society Groups, Fundamental Freedoms Shrank Further in Modi’s Second Term

Space for Civil Society Groups, Fundamental Freedoms Shrank Further in Modi’s Second Term

NewsClick / by Newsclick Report

The CIVICUS Monitor, an online platform that tracks threats to civil society in countries across the globe, rates civic space – the space for civil society – in India as “Repressed”.
… On human rights defenders, the report pointed how those critical of the government were implicated and jailed in “politically motivated cases under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), a draconian anti-terror law,”such as 16 activists in the Bhima Koregaon case, former JNU student Umar Khalid, student activist Gulfisha Fatima and several activists in Kashmir, such as Khurram Parvez, award-winning photojournalist Masrat Zahra, journalist Peerzada Ashiq among others,
Read more
Read full report: India – Fundamental Freedoms Deteriorate Further in Modi’s Second Term

Also read:
▪ India: Weaponizing Counterterrorism: India’s exploitation of terrorism financing assessments to target the civil society (Amnesty International / Sep 2023)
▪ The Uses (and Abuses) of Investigative Agencies (The Wire / Nov 2022)
▪ India | Civicus Monitor Watchlist – Overview Of Recent Restrictions To Civic Freedoms (March 2022)
▪ AUTHORITIES HARASS AND SQUEEZE FUNDING OF NGOS WHILE ACTIVISTS, JOURNALISTS TARGETED IN INDIA (CIVICUS / Feb 2022)
▪ Maharashtra is adding activists to a secret list of the enemies of state (Newslaundry / July 2021)
▪ How Governments Avoid Due Process by Declaring Groups as ‘Front Organisations’ of Banned Entities (The Wire / Sep 2020)

‘Pattern’ of UAPA Being Abused / You spent 10 years in jail for nothing. Who should pay for it?

‘Pattern’ of UAPA Being Abused / You spent 10 years in jail for nothing. Who should pay for it?

Elgar Parishad Case: Bail Orders Show ‘Pattern’ of UAPA Being Abused

14/04/2024

The Quint / by Rohit Khannna

The SC recently granted bail to activist Shoma Sen, stating the allegations against her were prima facie not true.
On 5 April 2024, the Supreme Court granted bail to former Nagpur University professor and activist Shoma Sen, stating that the allegations against her – of indulging in terrorist activities or working for a terror group – were prima facie “not true”, and that no case was made out against her for offences under the extremely stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act or UAPA.
Shoma Sen is among the 16 accused in the Elgar Parishad case, all of whom were arrested under the UAPA.
Read more

Video: Elgar Parishad Case: Bail Orders Show ‘Pattern’ of UAPA Being Abused

By The Quint

en | 5:12min | 2024
Watch video

The Reichstag Fire & Prof Shoma Sen

14/04/2024

Newsclick / by Prabhat Patnaik

There’s a striking contrast between German judiciary stance during Hitler’s time and Indian judiciary’s on the executive’s trampling upon the Constitution.
… Professor Shoma Sen of Nagpur University was granted bail on Friday, April 5, by the Supreme Court, after she had spent six years in jail as an accused in the Bhima-Koregaon case. While granting her bail, the Supreme Court said in no uncertain terms that there was no prima facie case of her being associated with any acts of terrorism or being linked to any terrorist organisation. And yet she had to spend six years of her life in jail, which raises two fundamental questions: first, shouldn’t the government be held responsible, and hence be penalised in some way, for her extremely long incarceration without any trial, and that too on non-existent grounds according to the Supreme Court itself?
And, second, what were the various courts doing all these six years, letting her languish in jail, when they were duty-bound under the Constitution to protect her fundamental rights?
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You spent 10 years in jail for nothing. Who should pay for it?

12/04/2024

Times of India / by Sunil Baghel

What connects three professors — from Delhi, Kolhapur and Nagpur — to 17 residents of a village in Madhya Pradesh? All of them spent time in jail as undertrials or convicts before they were either acquitted or granted bail due to lack of evidence, with the courts questioning the cases against them.
… Under the stringent UAPA — where getting bail is even harder than other criminal cases — more than 24,000 people were accused in 5,027 cases registered between 2016 and 2020.
The data revealed in response to a question in the Rajya Sabha showed that just 212 people had been convicted in these cases, and 386 were acquitted. As per the data, nearly 98% of those arrested under the law had been imprisoned for multiple years just awaiting trial or to get bail.
Read more

Also watch/read:

▪ Spotlight | How UAPA is Crushing Dissent in India

The Wire’s new show, ‘Spotlight’ / by Zeeshan Kaskar

en | 15:16min | 2024
In Episode 4 of The Wire’s new show, ‘Spotlight’, we understand the UAPA, its history and how the 2019 amendment of the law has pushed India’s legal justice system on the brink.
Watch video

▪ Explained: The Shoma Sen bail judgment (The Leaflet / April 2024)
▪ Can Father Stan Swamy’s PIL be the blueprint for justice to thousands of undertrials lodged under UAPA? (The Leaflet / Aug 2023)
▪ Report: UAPA – CRIMINALISING DISSENT AND STATE TERROR (PUCL / Sep 2022)

Download report
▪ Punished without trial: How India’s political prisoners are being denied basic rights in jail (Scroll.in / Aug 2022)
▪ A study of Undertrials in Jharkhand (Sanhati / by Bagaicha Research Team / Feb 2016)

Delhi Police files chargesheet in UAPA case against NewsClick founder Prabir Puryakayastha

Delhi Police files chargesheet in UAPA case against NewsClick founder Prabir Puryakayastha

NewsClick UAPA case: Delhi Police Special Cell files chargesheet against founder-editor Prabir Purkayastha, portal

30/03/2024

The Indian Express / by Nirbhay Thakur

Among allegations detailed by the Special Cell in its FIR against Prabir Purkayastha were attempts to show Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh as “not parts of India”.
… The Special Cell had registered an FIR in this regard in August under sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and the Indian Penal Code (IPC). In November, the two were sent to a month’s judicial custody. The FIR also mentioned Purkayastha’s “friendship since 1991” with rights activist Gautam Navlakha who is under house arrest in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist link case.
Read more

Delhi Police files chargesheet in UAPA case against NewsClick founder Prabir Puryakayastha

30/03/2024

Scroll.in / by Scroll Staff

Purkayastha and PPK NewsClick Studio were named as accused parties for allegedly taking Chinese funds to ‘undermine India’s sovereignty, territorial integrity’.
The Delhi Police Special Cell on Saturday filed an 8,000-page chargesheet in the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act case against NewsClick founder and editor Prabir Puryakayastha, who has been in judicial custody since November.
Read more

Newsclick Rejects Allegations Published in Media; Latest Claims No Different

Newsclick.in | Newsclick Team | March 29, 2024
Statement on allegations published in the media about the case under UAPA being investigated by the Special Cell of Delhi Police.
Read full statement

Also read:
▪ ‘NewsClick’ case: Gautam Navlakha questioned by Delhi Police (Scroll.in / Dec 2023)
▪ This Is the Biggest Crackdown on the Indian Press by the Indian State (The Wire / Oct 2023)

Top Global Academics Flay Recent Pattern in India of Jailing Critics Without Trial

Top Global Academics Flay Recent Pattern in India of Jailing Critics Without Trial

Campaign poster, 2020

The Wire / by The Wire Staff

Nobel laureate Amartya Sen has voiced his support for the statement – among whose authors is Amitav Ghosh – saying such imprisonment without trial was “certainly among the worst injustices that the country has made into a regular arrangement”.
Sixteen prominent academics released a statement expressing concern over the prolonged detention without trial of writers, journalists and activists who were critical of the Union government.
Read more / read the full text of the two statements

Kejriwal Arrest: This Coup Against Our Constitutional Setup is a Wake-Up Call

Kejriwal Arrest: This Coup Against Our Constitutional Setup is a Wake-Up Call

Campaign, 2020

The Wire / by Apoorvanand

One knows that the arrest of Arvind Kejriwal or Hemant Soren is to scare political leaders and the people and stun them into inaction. Is this how we want to live? Are we actors in this theatre of democracy or mere spectators?
… But in India and especially under the BJP government, investigation is used as a ruse to punish the critics and opponents of the government by jailing them. This is exactly what was done to P. Chidambaram and many others.
Recently, we heard the agencies informing the court that it did not need Shoma Sen’s custody for investigation. She is in jail for more than five years in the Bhima Koregaon conspiracy case.
Read more

Also read:
▪ State-sponsored attacks of surveillance reveal an erosion on Indians’ right to privacy, especially journalists, political opposition (SabrangIndia / Nov 2023)
▪ India: Weaponizing Counterterrorism: India’s exploitation of terrorism financing assessments to target the civil society (Amnesty International / Sep 2023)
▪ The Uses (and Abuses) of Investigative Agencies (The Wire / Nov 2022)
▪ AUTHORITIES HARASS AND SQUEEZE FUNDING OF NGOS WHILE ACTIVISTS, JOURNALISTS TARGETED IN INDIA (CIVICUS / Feb 2022)
▪ Maharashtra is adding activists to a secret list of the enemies of state (Newslaundry / July 2021)
▪ How Governments Avoid Due Process by Declaring Groups as ‘Front Organisations’ of Banned Entities (The Wire / Sep 2020)

Was the trial judge who convicted GN Saibaba biased? We will never know, and that is part of the injustice

Was the trial judge who convicted GN Saibaba biased? We will never know, and that is part of the injustice

Was the trial judge who convicted G.N. Saibaba biased? We will never know, and that is part of the injustice

24/03/2024

The Leaflet / by Nihalsing Rathod

The injustice of a trial judge filling the gaps in the prosecution’s case (which relied on ‘evidence’ in the form of bananas, umbrellas and newspaper cuttings) with judicial overreach to chop ten years off Professor G.N. Saibaba’s life.
The Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High Court heard the appeal against the conviction of Prof. G.N. Saibaba and five others, twice. In both the judgments, it set aside the conviction.
Read more

Branded Maoist, ex-political prisoners narrate how they were wrongfully incarcerated

21/03/2023

Counterview.net / by Our Representative

Celebrating the International Day of Solidarity with Political Prisoners, which fell on March 18, the Campaign Against State Repression (CASR), a joint platform of 35+ organizations, held a public gathering in Delhi titled “Life in Anda Cell: Political Prisoners and Wrongful Incarcerations” at the Press Club of India, Delhi, in order to mark the acquittal and prison experience of cultural activist Hem Mishra and his family. 
… Hem Mishra added, “it is not about just the 6 of us in my case. It is about all political prisoners. As long as the fight for jal-jangal-jameen remains, as long as the fight of Dalits, Adivasis, workers, peasants, oppressed nationalities remains, as long as the question of creating a better world for all people and a better state for all people remains, the fight of all political prisoners will rage on. At the end of the day, I am a bard who sings the songs of the people and I will continue to echo their cries. I am out of prison, but as long as all other political prisoners like Rona Wilson, Surendra Gadling, Sudhir Dhawale are inside prison, I feel I am only out from a smaller cage into a bigger one.”
Read more

By Adv Surendra Gadling Defence Committee (Jan 2021):
With due credit to anonymous artist and to the jailed, to be jailed lawyers

IO Whose Role Bombay HC Questioned in Saibaba Case Was Also Part of Elgar Parishad Probe

13/03/2024

The Wire / by Sukanya Shantha

The Pune police, at multiple places in the Elgar Parishad chargesheet, claimed that some of those arrested in the Elgar Parishad case had a “direct association” with Saibaba.
At the end of 2018, when the Pune police first filed a chargesheet in the Elgar Parishad case, they claimed to be “heavily relying” on the investigation conducted in the case involving former Delhi University professor G.N. Saibaba. By then, Saibaba and five others had already been convicted by the Gadchiroli sessions court.
Read more

Also watch:

▪ Video: INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY MEETING

en | 1:07 min | 2024

By INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY FOR ACADEMIC FREEDOM IN INDIA (InSAF)
Celebrating the Second Acquittal of Professor GN Saibaba, Prashant Rahi, Mahesh Tirki, Hem Mishra and Vijay Tirki and the late Pandu Narote
Years in solitary confinement Years of shuttling from one bail plea to another Endless health ordeals, systematic discrimination The custodial death of 32-year old co-accused Pandu Narote The shocking overnight reversal of an acquittal order The life and trials of GN Saibaba and his co-accused remind us of the extent the repressive Indian state will go to in order to silence voices of dissent But on 7 March 2024, they finally walked free, after being acquitted for the second time on 5 March 2024, exonerated of all charges On 10 March 2024, we came together to celebrate this overdue step
We will not be silenced

Co-sponsored by
International Solidarity for Academic Freedom in India (InSAF India) South Asian Diaspora Action Collective (SADAC) Indian Workers Association (Great Britain) (IWA-GB) India Labour Solidarity (UK) Foundation The London Story The Humanism Project, Australia Hindus for Human Rights Free Saibaba Coalition (USA) Boston South Asian Coalition (BSAC) India Civil Watch International (ICWI) South Asia Solidarity Group, London

Watch video

IO Whose Role Bombay HC Questioned in Saibaba Case Was Also Part of Elgar Parishad Probe / Video

IO Whose Role Bombay HC Questioned in Saibaba Case Was Also Part of Elgar Parishad Probe / Video

The Wire / by Sukanya Shantha

The Pune police, at multiple places in the Elgar Parishad chargesheet, claimed that some of those arrested in the Elgar Parishad case had a “direct association” with Saibaba.
At the end of 2018, when the Pune police first filed a chargesheet in the Elgar Parishad case, they claimed to be “heavily relying” on the investigation conducted in the case involving former Delhi University professor G.N. Saibaba. By then, Saibaba and five others had already been convicted by the Gadchiroli sessions court.
Read more

Also read/watch:
▪ ‘It Is Only by Chance That I Came Out of Prison Alive’: G.N. Saibaba (The Wire / March 2024)

▪ Video: INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY MEETING

en | 1:07 min | 2024

By INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY FOR ACADEMIC FREEDOM IN INDIA (InSAF)
Celebrating the Second Acquittal of Professor GN Saibaba, Prashant Rahi, Mahesh Tirki, Hem Mishra and Vijay Tirki and the late Pandu Narote
Years in solitary confinement Years of shuttling from one bail plea to another Endless health ordeals, systematic discrimination The custodial death of 32-year old co-accused Pandu Narote The shocking overnight reversal of an acquittal order The life and trials of GN Saibaba and his co-accused remind us of the extent the repressive Indian state will go to in order to silence voices of dissent But on 7 March 2024, they finally walked free, after being acquitted for the second time on 5 March 2024, exonerated of all charges On 10 March 2024, we came together to celebrate this overdue step
We will not be silenced

Co-sponsored by
International Solidarity for Academic Freedom in India (InSAF India) South Asian Diaspora Action Collective (SADAC) Indian Workers Association (Great Britain) (IWA-GB) India Labour Solidarity (UK) Foundation The London Story The Humanism Project, Australia Hindus for Human Rights Free Saibaba Coalition (USA) Boston South Asian Coalition (BSAC) India Civil Watch International (ICWI) South Asia Solidarity Group, London

Watch video