Browsed by
Category: Solidarity

Irish & Canadian Jesuits call for the release of Stan Swamy / Video: Campaigns calling for release continue

Irish & Canadian Jesuits call for the release of Stan Swamy / Video: Campaigns calling for release continue

Release Human Rights Defender Stan Swamy SJ

16/04/2021

Irish Jesuits International / by Irish Jesuits International

Fr Swamy is in poor health. He is hearing impaired and has Parkinson’s disease, and there have been calls from around the world – including from Pope Francis – to free him. He had been harrassed by authorities for some time and anticipated the likelihood of his arrest. He spoke about it in a video he made just two days before it occurred. But he is still in prison, and had his application for bail rejected on 22nd March 2021.
Jesuit Response
On hearing the news of the bail refusal, the Jesuits’ Social Justice and Ecology Secretariat (SJES) in Rome released a Statement of Solidarity in which Fr Xavier Jeyaraj SJ said:
Read more

Canadian Jesuits call for the release of 83-year-old human rights defender

14/04/2021

Broadview / by Kiernan Green

Jesuits in Canada and around the world continue to call for the release of Father Stan Swamy, an 83-year-old Indian Jesuit and human rights defender charged and imprisoned under India’s anti-terror laws…
The Indian Jesuit father advocated for the land rights of the Indigenous people of eastern India for five decades. In 2018, he co-filed a public interest litigation on behalf of over 3,000 Adivasi villagers imprisoned without the due process of a timely trial.
Read more

Video: Campaigns calling for release of India´s Father Stan Swamy continue

14/04/2021


en | 2:36min | 2021

By Rome Reports

This Rome Reports video above features efforts — including those made by the Jesuits — to free Indian Father Stan Swamy from prison.
Watch video

Jesuit Missions UK: Stand with Stan on his 84th birthday (April 26)

Jesuit Missions UK: Stand with Stan on his 84th birthday (April 26)

By Jesuit Missions UK

Fr Stan Swamy SJ celebrates his 84th birthday on 26 April. This year we want to let him know he is not forgotten.
Fr Stan Swamy SJ is an 83-year-old priest and human rights activist who has spent his life working for the poorest and most marginalised people in India. The Indian government has pursued a campaign of harassment against Fr Stan and other human rights activists in recent years …
Please join us in sending him a message of hope and solidarity this Easter. The card can be very simple or even a piece of folded paper.
Read more

Andhra govt, Centre ‘collude’ to repeat Bhima Koregaon type case against rights activists

Andhra govt, Centre ‘collude’ to repeat Bhima Koregaon type case against rights activists


Drawing by Arun Ferreira

Andhra govt, Centre ‘collude’ to repeat Bhima Koregaon type case against rights activists

11/04/2021

Counterview / by Counterview Desk

In a comprehensive statement, running into about 3,500 words, India’s premier human rights organisation, People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), even as condemning the recent “unprecedented attack” on rights activists by the Andhra Pradesh government, with the Centre’s National Investigation Agency (NIA) and stood in “solidarity”, has said that the main aim of the “witch hunt” is to silence dissent.
Signed by Ravi Kiran Jain and Dr V Suresh, respectively President and General Secretary of PUCL, the statement, drawing a parallel with the Bhima Koregaon case, said, this time too the NIA cover was used to level the allegation that the activists were all supporters and “front organisations” of Maoists.
Read more

NIA Raids 33 Activists in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana

10/04/2021

The Leaflet / by The Leaflet

On 31st March & 1st April 2021, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) raided the homes of at least 33 human rights and civil liberties activists, members of women’s groups, Dalit organizations, labor unions, and social and cultural movements in 31 locations spread across Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. The NIA alleged that the activists were all supporters and “front organizations” of Maoists. These raids resemble the ones carried out in the Bhima Koregoan case….
In the past few years, the NIA has frequently stepped in to take control of UAPA cases in states which are not governed by the BJP.
Read more

Also Read: NIA takes over Andhra probe against activists (Hindustan Times, March 2021)

To The Jailed Priest Who Loves People: Friends Remember Stan Swamy

To The Jailed Priest Who Loves People: Friends Remember Stan Swamy

The Quint / by Asmita Nandy

Even as Father Stan Swamy fights for bail, his friends remember him as the man who “loves and lives for the poor.”
A four-minute call every 10 days from Taloja jail and a chirpy “I am managing here” keep the hope alive for friends of 83-year-old human rights activist and Jesuit priest Stan Swamy, booked by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) in the Bhima-Koregaon case.
Read more

Nearing 180th day of incarceration, Stan Swamy carries cross, ‘awaits’ his Easter

Nearing 180th day of incarceration, Stan Swamy carries cross, ‘awaits’ his Easter

Counterview / by Fr Cedric Prakash SJ

April 4 was Holy Saturday 2021! Christians, in an age-old custom, waited devoutly, in patient silence but with deep hope: The tomb which contains the body of Jesus would be thrown wide open in a few hours, revealing the Resurrection of Jesus, his triumph over death and the promise to mankind of eternal life.
In some cell, in the Taloja jail (near Bombay), Jesuit Fr Stan Swamy nearing the 180th day of his incarceration, is still carrying his cross, still making that steep and difficult climb to Golgotha – but still in patience but with hope, awaiting his Easter!
On March 22, Sessions Judge Dinesh E. Kothalikar of the Special NIA Court, denied Fr Stan Swamy bail. In the detailed court order of 34-pages Justice Kothalikar said that based on the ‘material available on record’, Fr Stan seemed to be a member of a banned Maoist organisation:
Read more

Also read: Bail denied to Fr. Stan Swamy SJ in India – A Statement from the Social Justice and Ecology Secretariat, Rome (March 22, 2021). Read full statement (PDF): SJES-Rome March31

Indian courts and Medical Bail

Indian courts and Medical Bail

CJP / by Zahid Maniyar

The Special NIA court rejected Father Stan Swamy’s bail plea on grounds that “he was not only the member of banned organisation CPI (Maoist) but was also carrying out activities to further the objective of the organisation which is nothing but to overthrow the democracy of the nation.”
Read more

More Than 2,500 Activists, Academics, Others Issue Statement Demanding Stan Swamy’s Release

More Than 2,500 Activists, Academics, Others Issue Statement Demanding Stan Swamy’s Release

More Than 2,500 Activists, Academics, Others Issue Statement Demanding Stan Swamy’s Release

30/03/2021

The Wire / by The Wire Staff

“Stan Swamy is a symbol of the plight of thousands of undertrial prisoners who languish in jail for years under fabricated UAPA charges.”
A group of more than 2,500 people from India and abroad have issued a statement demanding the release of 84-year-old Stan Swamy, whose bail was rejected by a National Investigation Agency (NIA) court on March 22.
Swamy, an Adivasi rights activist, is one of the 16 academics, lawyers and activists arrested in the Elgar Parishad case. He was arrested in October last year and suffers from acute Parkinson’s disease along with several other age-related ailments. Swamy had sought bail on the grounds that the prosecution has failed to establish his involvement with the ongoing investigation.
Read more / read the full text of the statement and the list of signatories.

Endorse: Appeal for Immediate Bail to 84-year Old Stan Swamy

28/03/2021

By various activists from Jharkhand

Please consider endorsing and circulating the attached statement against rejection of bail application of 84-year old Stan Swamy and appeal for his immediate bail. Endorsements (name, affiliation/organisation and place) should be sent before 8 am on Tuesday, 30 March 2021.

Appeal for Immediate Bail to 84-year Old Stan Swamy

We, the undersigned, are shocked by the rejection of a bail application filed by Stan Swamy in the Bhima Koregaon case by the special NIA (National Investigation Agency) court on 22 March 2021. He was arrested on 8 October 2021 and continues to languish in jail. …

Read More Read More

The Targeted Silencing of Thinker, Student, Reporter / Criminalisation of Anti-Cast Research

The Targeted Silencing of Thinker, Student, Reporter / Criminalisation of Anti-Cast Research

The Targeted Silencing of the Trinity of Thinker, Student, Reporter

28/03/2021

The Wire / by Pamela Philipose

Academia and journalism are intertwined. Both create and question knowledge, both demand a critical engagement with society, and both have a distinct interface with the public.
What is more, journalism and academia routinely draw from – and contribute – to the other. In a conversation carried by The Wire (‘Watch | The State of India’s Academic Freedom’, March 25), reference was made to the elements that constitute academic freedom…
Courageous individuals who stood up and spoke out felt the full force of a vengeful state machinery. If we are to consider the Bhima Koregaon arrests, four of the 16 people put behind bars were formally attached to universities. Anand Teltumbe, a former IIT professor, was a management professor at the Goa Institute of Management; Shoma Sen, the head of the English Literature department, Nagpur University; Sudha Bharadwaj, was visiting professor at the National Law School, Delhi; Hany Babu, was professor of language and linguistics at Delhi University.
Read more

Criminalisation of Anti-Cast Research

27/02/2021

By International Solidarity for Academic Freedom in India (InSAF)

27 March
8pm IST
Register here: http://shorturl.at/hzHM5

Anti-caste academic research and activism in India are increasingly threatened with criminalisation and surveillance from the state: from the arrests of academics and students to the militarisation of campuses, from the banning of books, plays and film screenings to the censorship of activities deemed as detrimental to the reputation of the government. The persecution of academic-activists in connection with the Bhima-Koregaon violence is a case in point. …

Read More Read More