Persecution – Page 41 – free them all

We Are Considering To Send Him On House Arrest: Supreme Court To NIA In Gautam Navlakha’s Plea

09/11/2022 Asha

‘We Are Considering To Send Him On House Arrest, Tell Us What Are The Conditions To Be Imposed’? Supreme Court To NIA In Gautam Navlakha’s Plea

09/11/2022

Live Law / by Livelaw News Network

The Supreme Court is likely to pronounce tomorrow the order on the application moved by Bhima Koregaon case accused Gautam Navlakha seeking transfer to house arrest on account of his medical condition.
“This Court has considered house arrest as a form of custody… All kinds of restrictions. We will try out. He’s not in the best of health,” the Top Court said after an hour-long hearing.
Read more

The corrupt destroy the country, Supreme Court counters government in Gautam Navlakha case

09/11/2022

The Hindu / by Krishnadas Rajagopal

Additional Solicitor General S.V. Raju had said that people like activist Navlakha want to destroy the country
A Supreme Court Bench stated on November 9 that it is corrupt who destroy the country, in a sharp response to the government’s claim that people like activist Gautam Navlakha, who is charged under UAPA in the Bhima Koregaon case for alleged Maoist links, “want to destroy the country and their ideology is that type”.
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SC Says It May Put Gautam Navlakha Under House Arrest

09/11/2022

The Wire / by The Wire Staff

The top court asked the National Investigation Agency to inform it about the kind of restrictions that should be enforced while the activist is under house arrest.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday indicated that it may place activist Gautam Navlakha, arrested in the Elgar Parishad case, under house arrest, asking the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to inform it about the kind of restrictions that should be enforced.
The top court asked additional solicitor general (ASG) S.V. Raju, appearing for the NIA, to seek instructions and inform it.
Read more

#SupremeCourt hearing plea by activist Gautam Navlakha

Thread by Bar & Bench – Live Threads (Nov 9, 2022:)

#SupremeCourt hearing plea by activist Gautam Navlakha, accused in #BhimaKoregaon case, seeking house arrest

Sr Adv Kapil Sibal: Medical reports show he cannot receive the treatment needed in jail. [Reads from reports]

ASG SV Raju: Only got them today. Will need time to examine. Sibal continues reading
…

Read full thread

by The Times of India (Nov 9, 2022):
SC asks NIA to brief the court tomorrow on what kind of restrictions it wanted for social activist Gautam Navlakha if he is allowed to come out of jail and be kept under house arrest

Also read:
● Supreme Court directs parties to inspect Gautam Navlakha’s medical reports (The Leaflet / Oct 2022)

Report Release: In the Name of Development / Snooping on Civil Society

29/10/2022 Asha

India Trains Its Sights on Dissent in Chhattisgarh – Snooping on Civil Society

28/10/2022

Voelkerrechtsblog / by Allison West

Development in the form of profit-driven resource exploitation ventures in India’s central state of Chhattisgarh, led by corporations and facilitated by the state, have wreaked havoc on the lives and livelihoods of the region’s indigenous Adivasi peoples. In the face of widespread dispossession, corporate land grabs, environmental degradation and militarized policing in Chhattisgarh, Adivasi activists and organized civil society play a vital role in monitoring, documenting and challenging ongoing human rights violations on the ground…
In 2020, Amnesty International and Citizen Lab uncovered a coordinated spyware campaign targeting nine human rights defenders in India, including several active in Chhattisgarh. Between January and October 2019, the targets received spearphishing emails with malicious links that, if opened, would have installed NetWire, a commercially manufactured Windows spyware that monitors a user’s actions and communications..
The common link between the human rights defenders targeted in the NetWire attack seemed to be a record of speaking out on behalf of those imprisoned in the 2018 Bhima Koregaon Case.
Read more

Report Release: In the Name of Development – Indigenous Rights Violations and Shrinking Space in Chhattisgarh

03/11/2022

By India Justice Project & ECCHR

The report presents insights into the ongoing assault by the Indian state and powerful corporations on the indigenous peoples of the country through a case study of Chhattisgarh. In particular, the report highlights the legal and institutional means through which powerful state, military and corporate actors appropriate land and shrink space for Adivasi rights and resistance in Chhattisgarh.
Read full report (PDF, 72 pages)

Also read:
● DISINHERITING ADIVASIS – THE GADCHIROLI GAME PLAN (KAFILA / June 2018)
● Mining In Gadchiroli – Building A Castle Of Injustices (Countercurrents / June 2017)

Supreme Court to hear on Nov 9 Navlakha’s plea seeking house arrest

21/10/2022 Asha

Supreme Court directs parties to inspect Gautam Navlakha’s medical reports

21/10/2022

The Leaflet / by The Leaflet

As the Supreme Court is set to hear Navlakha’s plea for house arrest to facilitate his medical treatment, his latest medical reports assume significance.
ON Thursday, in Gautam Navlakha versus National Investigation Agency and Anr., a division bench of the Supreme Court, comprising Justices K.M. Joseph and Hrishikesh Roy, permitted the parties to inspect Navlakha’s medical reports sent by Jaslok Hospital, where he was taken for urgent medical examinations.
Seventy-year old journalist and human rights activist Navlakha, an accused in the Bhima Koregaon-Elgar Parishad case, is charged under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, and is awaiting trial.
Read more

SC allows NIA to inspect health reports of activist Gautam Navlakha

21/10/2022

Scroll.in / by Scroll Staff

The court had ordered the authorities to admit the activist to a hospital while hearing his plea to be placed under house arrest.
The Supreme Court on Friday allowed the National Investigation Agency and other parties to the Bhima Koregaon case to inspect the health reports of activist Gautam Navlakha, reported Live Law.
The Supreme Court is hearing the activist’s petition seeking to to be placed under house arrest. Navlakha has cited his ill health and poor facilities at the Taloja Jail as reasons for his demand.
… The court adjourned the matter till November 9.
Read more

Supreme Court Allows Parties To Inspect Hospital Reports On Bhima Koregaon Case Accused Gautam Navlakha’s Health Status

21/10/2022

Live Law / by Rintu Mariam Biju

The Supreme Court of India on Friday allowed the parties to inspect the reports filed by the hospital regarding Bhima Koregaon case accused, Gautam Navlakha’s health status.
On September 29, the Supreme Court had directed for Navlakha to be taken to a hospital of choice for a thorough medical check-up after Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal argued that he had many health complications. The Hospital was also asked to submit a report to the Court based on the check-up.
A Bench of Justices KM Joseph and Hrishikesh Roy was considering a petition moved by Navlakha seeking transfer to house arrest.
Read more

SC to hear on Nov 9 Navlakha’s plea seeking house arrest

21/10/2022

The Indian Express / by Express News Service

Navlakha, who was lodged in Taloja jail, had approached the SC challenging the Bombay High Court decision rejecting the prayer to place him under house arrest.
Deferring the hearing to November 9 on a plea by Gautam Navlakha, who is behind bars under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) in the Bhima Koregaon case, seeking house arrest, the Supreme Court on Friday allowed the parties to inspect his medical reports submitted by the Jaslok Hospital where he was taken for a medical check-up.
Read more

Also read:
● Stop Denying Political Prisoners the Right to Healthcare in Jails (Peoples Union for Democratic Rights / Sep 2022)

Sudha Bharadwaj restarts law practice after 3 years in prison

21/10/2022 Asha

Hindustan Times / by Gautam S. Mengle

When she was released on conditional bail in the Bhima Koregaon case, for which she spent over three years in jail, one of the first things Sudha Bharadwaj asked her daughter to send from her home in Bilaspur were her black coat and her lawyer’s sanad.
Her black lawyer’s coat hangs from the back of her chair, the computer on the table has multiple windows open – the websites of various courts in Maharashtra – and a stack of handwritten letters await her attention.
Read more (for HT subscribers only)

by Kavita Srivastava (Oct 21, 2022):

Also watch/read:

● Video: The Conditions of Prisoners in Indian Jails

By All India Lawyers’ Association for Justice – AILAJ / March 2022

en | 1:21:23 | 2022
The huge number of undertrials, the overcrowding, and the disproportional numbers of Dalit, Muslim and Adivasi prisoners are part of the prison problem in India.
We are joined by Adv. Sudha Bharadwaj for a discussion on the Conditions of Prisoners in Indian Jails.
Watch video

● Sudha Bharadwaj speaks – A Life in Law and Activism

Publisher: Peoples Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL)
Edition: January 2021
Language: English
Sudha Bharadwaj’s interview by: Darshana Mitra and Santanu Chakraborty
Pictures credit: PUCL
Cover Design / Layout: Vinay Jain
Paperback: 316 pages
Access a free PDF copy of the book here:
Sudha_Bharadwaj_speaks (2,1 MB)

Securing the right to health of political prisoners

19/10/2022 Asha

The Leaflet / by Rohin Bhatt

It is time that the right to health becomes a reality, in letter and spirit to every person, irrespective of their incarceration status. This will have to be done through a wide scale, public health campaign, and rapid recruitment of qualified doctors with training in evidence-based medicine that can provide adequate care to prisoners.
It has been good law in India since Bandhua Mukti Morcha versus Union of India (1983) that the right to health is a fundamental part of right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution…
However, what happens when you are a political prisoner in India? These rights are vitiated, and the process becomes the punishment.
Read more

Also read/watch:
● Relatives of BK16 Flag Prison Authorities’ ‘Criminal Negligence’ and Deteriorating Health of Undertrials (Newsclick / Sep 2022)
● Stop Denying Political Prisoners the Right to Healthcare in Jails (Peoples Union for Democratic Rights / Sep 2022)
● Hunger Strike unto death against the harassment from Taloja Central Jail’s apathetic administration (By Sagar Gorkhe / May 20, 2022)

● Video: The Conditions of Prisoners in Indian Jails

By All India Lawyers’ Association for Justice – AILAJ / March 2022

Kabir Kala Manch incited hatred, passion at Elgar Parishad: Bombay High Court [read order]

18/10/2022 Asha

Kabir Kala Manch Incited Hatred By Ridiculing Phrases Acche Din, Demonetization In Plays: Bombay HC [read order]

18/10/2022

Live Law / by Sharmeen Hakim

Text ridiculing phrases like ‘Ram Mandir’ and ‘Acche Din’ aimed at the democratically elected government in Kabir Kala Manch’s plays at the Elgar Parishad event in 2017 incited hatred & passion and indicate a larger conspiracy, the Bombay High Court has held.
In its detailed order refusing bail to accused Jyoti Jagtap under UAPA, the HC also took exception to the mention of ‘gomutra,’ ‘calling the PM an ‘infant,’ ‘sanatan dharma,’ ‘atrocities of peshwas towards dalits’ and ‘atrocities of dalits in today’s India’ etc.
Read more

Kabir Kala Manch incited hatred, passion at Elgar Parishad: Bombay High Court

17/10/2022

India Today / by Vidya

Jyoti Jagtap was an active member of the KKM which, during its stage play at the Elgar Parishad conclave on December 31, 2017, gave not only “aggressive but highly provocative slogans”, the court said.
The Kabir Kala Manch (KKM) admittedly performed and incited hatred by performing on an agenda in the Elgar Parishad event, the judgment passed by the division bench of Justices AS Gadkari and MN Jadhav of the Bombay High Court observed while rejecting the bail plea of one of the accused, Jyoti Jagtap.
Read more

Also read:
● Kabir Kala Manch: A History of Revolutionary Singing and State Repression (ritimo / April 2022)

Bombay High Court rejects bail petition of Kabir Kala Manch activist Jyoti Jagtap

17/10/2022 Asha

Bombay HC rejects activist Jyoti Jagtap’s bail petition

17/10/2022

Scroll.in / by Scroll Staff

A bench comprising Justices Ajay Gadkari and Milind Jadhav observed that the case filed against her by the National Investigation Agency was prima facie true.
The Bombay High Court on Tuesday rejected a bail application filed by activist Jyoti Jagtap, one of the accused persons in the Bhima Koregaon case, Bar and Bench reported.
Jagtap, who is a member of cultural organisation Kabir Kala Manch, has been in prison since September 2020. On Monday, a bench of Justices Ajay Gadkari and Milind Jadhav rejecting her bail plea, observing that the case filed against her by the National Investigation Agency was prima facie true.
Read more

Bombay High Court rejects bail plea of Jyoti Jagtap

17/10/2022

Bar & Bench / by Neha Joshi

A bench of Justices AS Gadkari and Milind Jadhav observed that the NIA case was prima facie true and considering the material against Jagtap, the appeal challenging rejection of bail by Special Court stood dismissed.
The Bombay High Court on Tuesday rejected the regular bail application filed by Jyoti Jagtap, one of the youngest accused in the Bhima Koregaon case of 2018.
Jagtap, allegedly part of the banned performance group by the name Kabir Kala Manch (KKM), had approached the High Court in appeal after a Special Court under the National Investigation Act (NIA) had rejected her bail application on February 14 this year
The high court bench of Justice AS Gadkari and Milind Jadhav, hwoever, rejected the appeal today.
Read more

Bombay High Court Denies Bail to Jyoti Jagtap

17/10/2022

Live Law / by Sharmeen Hakim

The Bombay High Court on Monday denied bail to Jyoti Jagtap, an accused in the Bhima Koregaon-Elgar Parishad Case under the anti-terror Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).
Jagtap, 32, is allegedly a member of Kabir Kala Manch — a cultural group branded as a front organisation of the banned CPI (Maoist). She was arrested by the NIA in September, 2020.
According to NIA, Jagtap and others organised the Elgar Parishad on December 31, 2017 that led to violence the following day.
Read more

Also watch:
● Video: Dafachya Talavar (Songs of Defiance) – A short documentary on Kabir Kala Manch | Hindi, Marthi (subtitles: English) | 24:01min | 2022

Video: Sudha Bharadwaj on activism, her time in jail & why Chhattisgarh will always be home

15/10/2022 Asha

en | 13:32min | 2022

Newslaundry / by Manisha Pande; NL Interview

The trade unionist and lawyer sits down with Manisha Pande in Mumbai.
Sudha Bharadwaj loves mathematics, wonders whether she gave her daughter the “right” kind of childhood, and became a lawyer when she was 40 years old.
“Had I not become a lawyer,” she says, “I don’t think I would have been very easily accepted as a leader.”
Sudha was released from Mumbai’s Byculla Jail in December last year after spending three years in prison. She was arrested in connection with the #BhimaKoregaon violence and was repeatedly denied bail until December 1. She was also dubber an ‘urban naxal’ by TV channels that made little attempt to understand her work. Sudha says she now wants to go to her real home, to Chhattisgarh, where she’s lived since the 1980s.
In this interview, she talks about her childhood in Bilaspur and her educational journey, culminating in IIT Kanpur. Her mother, a #JNU professor, helped shape the ideology of this self-proclaimed #Marxist – though she confesses her mother had many “apprehensions” – who began working with trade unions at the age of 25.
Working with people on the ground, Sudha is only too aware of how “alien” the judicial process is to the majority of India’s population. “The notification comes out in the gazette. You are somewhere, miles away in a village which is not even accessible, and nobody even tells you about it,” she says. She also thinks it’s important for young lawyers to cut their teeth by representing the most marginalised.
In Byculla jail, where she remembers she once saw #RheaChakraborty, Sudha continued her work, trying to secure legal aid for those imprisoned with her. She believes in the importance of a “united front” – the farm law protests are an example, with people holding differing ideologies coming together – and worries that the lack of this unity gives rise to dogma.
Watch 13 min video clip here

by newslaundry (Oct 21, 2022):
‘He was never an opportunist in his politics.’ @Sudhabharadwaj talks about labour law leader and founder of the #Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha Shankar Guha Niyogi and the actual movement that led to his assassination.
Watch video clip (3:46min)

by newslaundry (Oct 20, 2022):
In conversation with @MnshaP @Sudhabharadwaj details the #Sarkeguda encounter case in #Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur district in which unarmed villagers including minors were killed, and the legal battle that ensued.
Watch video clip (4:30min)

by newslaundry (Oct 19, 2022):
‘So much money goes to defend the state.’ Speaking with @MnshaP, @Sudhabharadwaj
talks about legal aid in India and how there is no level playing field for citizens.
Watch video clip (2:34min)

Watch the full interview (for subscribers only) here

How the term Urban Naxal came to being

11/10/2022 Asha

Girish Karnad, Sep 2018 #MeTooUrbanNaxal

The rise of ‘Urban Naxals’, a term ‘not used by Govt’

13/10/2022

The Indian Express / by Vidhatri Rao

BJP has used it for AAP, Modi has attacked Cong over the same, and now it figures in PM’s Gujarat speeches.
Speaking after laying the foundation stone of the country’s first bulk drug park in Gujarat’s Bharuch district Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi brought up the issue of “Urban Naxals”…
The BJP has been using the term regularly since it first became popular after high-profile arrests of activists in July and August of 2018 in the Elgar Parishad case. Probing alleged links of the arrested activists to the violence at Bhima Koregaon in Pune that followed the Elgar Parishad event, police called them Urban Naxals.
Read more

How the term Urban Naxal came to being

11/10/2022

Deccan Herald / by DH Web Desk

The term ‘Urban Naxal’ is based off a Maoist strategy
PM Narendra Modi on Monday cautioned the people of Gujarat against ‘Urban Naxals’ trying to enter the state in a veiled attack on the Aam Aadmi Party, blaming ‘Urban Naxals’ of obstructing development projects in his home state. The term was coined by filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri’s May 2017 essay in right-wing magazine Swarajya, who went on to direct films like The Tashkent Files and The Kashmir Files. It came to be used in political circles in the wake of the Elgar-Parishad case, where left-wing dissenters who were critical of the Modi government were arrested in connection with violence in Maharashtra’s Bhima-Koregaon in 2018.
Read more

Also read:
● Constitutional Conduct Group: Open Letter to Citizens of India (Constitutionalconduct.com / Nov 2021)
● Amit Shah asks CRPF to take ‘effective action’ against urban Naxals, facilitators (Hindustan Times / Nov 2019)
● From Anti-National to Urban Naxal: The Trajectory of Dissent in India – How the term Urban Naxal came to being (Newsclick / Sep 2018)

After 5 benches recuse, Rona Wilson seeks suitable HC bench

30/09/2022 Asha

After 5 benches recuse, Elgaar case accused seeks suitable HC bench

30/09/2022

The Indian Express / by Sadaf Modak

Wilson had, in February 2021, moved a petition before the high court citing the report of a US-based digital consultant which said that his computer was ‘infected with malware’ planted two years before his arrest in 2018. The last effective hearing before the high court on Wilson’s petition was on August 4, 2021.
Activist Rona Wilson, an accused in the Elgaar Parishad case, on Thursday told a special court that he has written to the Chief Justice of Bombay High Court seeking a suitable bench to hear and dispose of a petition filed by him in a time-bound manner, as five benches have, so far, recused themselves from hearings on the case.
Read more

Rona Wilson writes to high court CJ for early hearing of discharge plea

30/09/2022

Hindustan Times / by Charul Shah

Rona Wilson, an accused in the Elgar Parishad-Bhima Koregaon violence case, has requested the Chief Justice of Bombay high court to expedite the hearing of his discharge plea based on the report by an American digital consultancy firm.
He had approached the high court in February last year to quash the case against him and to issue directions for setting up a special investigation team headed by a retired supreme court or high court judge to conduct a forensic analysis of the electronic evidence the police claimed to have collected against the accused.
Read more

Also read:
● Police Linked to Hacking Campaign to Frame Indian Activists (Wired.com / June 2022)
● In Bhima-Koregaon Case, More Damning Signs of Planted Evidence (article14 / March 2021)