Browsed by
Category: Solidarity

Alarming Reports of Attacks on Human Rights Defenders in India: UN

Alarming Reports of Attacks on Human Rights Defenders in India: UN

UN / By Mary Lawlor United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders

I continue to receive alarming and regular news about Human Rights Defenders (HRDs) in India. The 79 year-old jailed Human Rights Defender Varavara Rao appears to have serious health concerns. He’s held in the overcrowded Taloja Prison in Mumbai.
We know that HRDs are at great risk in prisons, which are breeding grounds for the virus. His health is frail, and like all HRDs in jail he should be immeditaley released.
Read full statement

In Solidarity with Varavara Rao: Statements & Visuals

In Solidarity with Varavara Rao: Statements & Visuals


+++ Udpate: VV Rao has been moved to the JJ Hospital in Mumbai +++

Scroll.in / by Scroll Staff

The PUDR said that it had become a standard procedure for the NIA to refuse bail to the poet as he did not suffer from a life-threatening disease.
The People’s Union for Democratic Rights on Monday expressed shock at the deteriorating health condition of poet Varavara Rao, and called for him to immediately be released. Rao, an accused in the Elgar Parishad case, is lodged in Taloja jail in Mumbai and his family has accused the authorities of neglecting his condition.
Read more

AN APPEAL FROM PEN INTERNATIONAL AND PEN DELHI

By Pen International and Pen Delhi

Poet Varavara Rao has been held in jail since 2018 and has been consistently denied bail. Varavara Rao is 81 years old. His health is deteriorating. He is old. He is frail. He is ill. When he speaks with his loved ones what he says does not make much sense. Those taking care of him are concerned. At a time when the COVID-19 pandemic is raging and the government has ordered the decongestion of jails to prevent the infection from spreading, there is an even greater risk to Varavara Rao’s health.
Read full statement

Video: Statement by Meena Kandasamy


en | 2:18 min | 2020
Watch video

RELEASE ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS

By Communist Party of India (Marxist)

The Polit Bureau of the CPI(M) expresses grave concern over the deteriorating health condition of several jailed political and human rights activists. Some of them have been reported to have contracted Covid-19 in jail. The deplorable conditions in the overcrowded jails, which lack even basic facilities has contributed immensely to their deteriorating health condition. Many of them have co-morbidities and have been on medications since long.
Read full statement

Letter by Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury – Leader of Congress Party in the Lok Sabha

Click to enlarge
Click to enlarge posters
Sign petition: Ensure Immediate Health Care & Release Vara Vara Rao Now

Sign petition: Ensure Immediate Health Care & Release Vara Vara Rao Now

+++ Udpate: VV Rao has been moved to the JJ Hospital in Mumbai +++

By Citizens In Solidarity with Vara Vara Rao

Do sign this open appeal to @PMOIndia & @CMOMaharashtra to #FreeVaravaraRao & ensure proper medical treatment. Click on link below to sign. Add ur name, organizational/professional affiliation and city/location.
Read and sign petition

Immediate Transfer to a Hospital and Prompt Treatment for Varvara Rao

Immediate Transfer to a Hospital and Prompt Treatment for Varvara Rao

+++ Udpate June 13: VV Rao has been moved to the JJ Hospital in Mumbai +++

Counter Currents / statement by Romila Thapar, Prabhat Patnaik, Devaki Jain, Maja Daruwala & Satish Deshpande

We appeal to the Government of Maharashtra and the National Investigation Agency to facilitate the immediate transfer of Mr. Varavara Rao to JJ Hospital where he can receive proper treatment. Mr Rao poses no flight risk and has voluntarily submitted to all investigations for the past 22 months. There is no reason in law or conscience to hold him in circumstances that increase risk to his fragile health.
Read full statement

Press Note from Vara Vara Rao’s Family

Press Note from Vara Vara Rao’s Family


VV Rao’s daughter Pavana and wife Hemalatha in May 2020

By Vara Vara Rao’s Family

DON’T KILL VARA VARA RAO IN JAIL !!
We, the family members of Varavara Rao, world-renowned Telugu revolutionary poet and public intellectual, who is incarcerated in Navi Mumbai’s Taloja Jail, are very much worried about his deteriorating health. His health condition has been scary for over six weeks now, ever since he was shifted in an unconscious state to JJ Hospital from Taloja Jail on May 28, 2020. Even as he was discharged from the hospital and sent back to jail three days later, there has been no improvement in his health and he is still in need of emergency heathcare. …

Read More Read More

By failing to check NIA in Gautam Navlakha case, SC has undermined the Delhi HC

By failing to check NIA in Gautam Navlakha case, SC has undermined the Delhi HC

Scroll.in / by Sruthisagar Yamunan

The National Investigation Agency’s actions were designed to undermine the jurisdiction of the Delhi court.
For India’s higher judiciary, two elements of court proceedings have come to be regarded as sacrosanct. As courts of record, the High Courts and the Supreme Court pay close attention to precedent: rules established in previous legal cases play a strong role when a later case with similar circumstances is decided.
Read more

Socialist Party (India) Demands the Immediate Release of Varavara Rao

Socialist Party (India) Demands the Immediate Release of Varavara Rao

By Socialist Party (India)

… Mr Rao is now 80 years old. He recently developed major health complications because of which he has had to be hospitalised. His continued imprisonment under such circumstances, as well as in the face of the risk posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, is unacceptable. Socialist Party (India) demands that Varavara Rao be released and all charges against him dropped immediately.
Read full statement

R Thapar, Others Urge Uddhav Thackeray to Move Arrested Rights Activists Out of Jails

R Thapar, Others Urge Uddhav Thackeray to Move Arrested Rights Activists Out of Jails

The Wire / by The Wire Staff

New Delhi: Five renowned public intellectuals – Romila Thapar, Prabhat Patnaik, Devaki Jain, Maja Daruwala and Satish Deshpande – have written to the chief minister of Maharashtra, Uddhav Thackeray, asking that the 11 rights activists who have been arrested in the Elgar Parishad case be moved to house arrest in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Read more

LETTER TO THE HONOURABLE CHIEF MINISER OF THE STATE OF MAHARASHTRA

26/06/2020

Documented by Indian Cultural Forum

The Honourable Chief Minister of the State of Maharashtra
Mantralaya, Mumbai.
25 June 2020

Respected Chief Minister,

We are the five petitioners who had approached the Supreme Court regarding the so-called ‘Bhima Koregaon case’ in September 2018, requesting that if the charges against the accused were persisted with, then there should be a Court-monitored probe into the matter (Romila Thapar & Ors. Vs. Union of India & Ors., Writ Petition 32319 of 2018). However, our petition was rejected by the Court through a majority 2-1 verdict.
Read full letter

Marking 45 years since the Emergency, Resolve to Strengthen the Struggle Against State Repression

Marking 45 years since the Emergency, Resolve to Strengthen the Struggle Against State Repression

By Campaign Against State Repression

45 years prior to today, on June 26th 1975, the country awoke to a declaration of Internal Emergency. Arguably one of the darkest days in the country’s history post 1947, Emergency Rule imposed by the then central government led by Indira Gandhi’s faction of the Indian National Congress (INC) was characterised by a near complete suspension of basic democratic rights and targeted attacks on all progressive and democratic forces and organisations.
Read more