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No bail, no trial: Sudha Bharadwaj turns 60 in jail / Another birthday in detention

No bail, no trial: Sudha Bharadwaj turns 60 in jail / Another birthday in detention

No bail, no trial: Sudha Bharadwaj turns 60 in jail!

01/11/2021

Sabrangindia / by Sabrangindia

The human rights defender has been accused of waging a war against the government and booked under terror charges in the Bhima Koregaon case
Trade Unionist, lawyer, professor, writer, Sudha Bharadwaj was arrested on August 28, 2018 and has been lodged in Byculla jail since then. She has been accused of criminal conspiracy, sedition under the Indian Penal Code and Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act charges of funding a terrorist activity, conspiracy, being a member of terrorist gang or organisation, and supporting a terrorist organisation.
Born on November 1, 1961, Bharadwaj has turned 60 today. This is the fourth birthday she has had to spend behind bars.
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Human rights defender Sudha Bharadwaj spends another birthday in detention

01/11/2021

By CIVICUS

Human rights defender and lawyer Sudha Bharadwaj will be spending her 60th birthday in detention today, more than three years after she was arrested on baseless charges under a draconian anti-terror law. Global civil society alliance CIVICUS calls on the Indian government to halt the ongoing persecution against her and release Bharadwaj immediately and unconditionally.
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‘If You Try to Be Safe and in the Middle, You Will Never Succeed’

01/11/2021

The Wire / by Monobina Gupta

Note: This article was originally published on July 18, 2018, and was republished on November 1, 2021, Sudha Bharadwaj’s 60th birthday.

Sudha Bharadwaj has spent nearly three decades working with the most marginalised sections of people in the conflict-ridden state of Chhattisgarh. Away from the media glare, her ear firmly to the ground, the trade union activist and lawyer has been up against powerful corporates and state administrations headed both by the present BJP dispensation and before that, the Congress party.
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Condemn The Solitary Confinement Of The Bhima Koregaon Accused!

Condemn The Solitary Confinement Of The Bhima Koregaon Accused!

By Peoples Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR)

CONDEMN THE SOLITARY CONFINEMENT AND CONTINUING HARASSMENT OF THE BHIMA KOREGAON ACCUSED BY TALOJA CENTRAL JAIL AUTHORITIES!
STOP PUNISHING POLITICAL PRISONERS FOR THEIR BELIEFS!

The high handedness of the Taloja Central Jail administration was evident in the events leading to the death of the octogenarian Bhima Koregaon undertrail, Stan Swamy on July 5, 2021. Almost immediately, the remaining BK undertrials protested the arbitrary jail conditions imposed by the then Superintendent, Kaustabh Kurlekar by observing a one-day hunger strike. However, far from bringing such persecution to an end, a new repressive regime has been installed by Superintendent UT Pawar. Its latest manifestation is the transfer of Vernon Gonsalves, Sagar Gokhale, Ramesh Gaichor, Surendra Gadling, Sudhir Dhawale and most recently on 12 October 2021 Gautam Navlakha to the ‘anda’ circle, the high security prison area in Taloja Jail. Imprisonment in the anda cell is a form of solitary confinement which is blatantly illegal in the case of undertrial prisoners.
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Allow phone calls with prisoners, say kin of Elgar Parishad accused

Allow phone calls with prisoners, say kin of Elgar Parishad accused

Allow phone calls with prisoners, say kin of Elgar Parishad accused

26/10/2021

Times of India / by Shishir Arya

Relatives of the Elgar Parishad case accused lodged in jail have demanded that the special facility of allowing phone calls by prisoners started during the Covid pandemic should not be discontinued. The facility has been demanded for all the prisoners, irrespective of the cases under which they have been held.
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Kin of jailed activists write to authorities to not discontinue telephone calls

25/10/2021

Sabrangindia / by Sabrangindia

Since prisons are all set to resume physical mulaqats, the authorities have informed the families that weekly calls will no longer be functional.
The family members of the accused undertrials in the Bhima Koregaon violence case, have written to the Additional Director General of Police (Prisons) and Special Inspector General of Police (Prisons) to continue the weekly phone calls with them.
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Trying Without a Trial Is the Intent of Draconian UAPA Law

Trying Without a Trial Is the Intent of Draconian UAPA Law

The Wire / by Rajshree Chandra

‘Trial by process’ is the political and organisational logic of the UAPA.
An 84-year-old Jesuit Father, Stan Swamy, charged for inciting violence in Bhima Koregaon (BK), died inside the panoptic walls of the Taloja jail on July 5. Despite his age, despite his Parkinson’s-ravaged body, despite his tremors, despite his Covid infection, despite all his frailties, he had been denied bail repeatedly. Rather than his ailing, failing body becoming a ground for bail and appropriate medical care, his body became yet another ground on which the National Investigation Agency (NIA) waged its vicious war.
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Gautam Navlakha’s health has worsened in jail, not being allowed phone calls, says his partner

Gautam Navlakha’s health has worsened in jail, not being allowed phone calls, says his partner

Phone calls, daily walks in jail’s green area stopped, says Navlakha’s partner

24/10/2021

The Hindu / by Special Correspondent

His fragile health and well-being will be further jeopardised by these actions, says Sahba Husain.
Activist and journalist Gautam Navlakha, who was arrested in the Bhima Koregaon case in 2020, has recently been shifted to a high-security section of the Taloja jail in Navi Mumbai and not allowed to call his family and lawyers, said his partner, Sahba Husain, in a statement on Sunday.
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Gautam Navlakha’s health has worsened in jail, not being allowed phone calls, says his partner

24/10/2021

Scroll.in / by Scroll Staff

The health condition of activist Gautam Navlakha deteriorated after he was shifted to the high-security barrack called the “Anda circle” in Navi Mumbai’s Taloja Jail, his partner Sahba Husain said on Sunday.
In a statement, Husain also said that the Bhima Koregaon case accused was not being allowed to make phone calls to his family members and lawyers.
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Full Statement by Sabha Husain

Clickt to enlarge
Human rights defenders don’t tarnish India’s image

Human rights defenders don’t tarnish India’s image

Human rights defenders don’t tarnish India’s image

19/10/2021

The Indian Express / by Kavita Krishnan

An event marking the 28th foundation day of India’s National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) revealed much about the current state of human rights in India.
… The fact is that India’s human rights defenders have held every shade of government responsible and accountable for human rights violations and infringement of civil liberties. Sudha Bharadwaj, a leading human rights defender who is in prison for the past three years thanks to flimsy charges under a draconian law, exposed rights violations in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar when the Union home ministry, then under the control of Modi’s rival, the Congress, unleashed “Operation Green Hunt” that resulted in the rape, massacre and displacement of Adivasi civilians in the name of combating Maoist insurgents.
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Mindset that harms human rights, writes P Chidambaram

17/10/2021

Indian Express / by P Chidambaram

In the last over three years, PM Modi has not uttered a word on the human rights of the prisoners in the Bhima Koregaon case nor on the prolonged delay in even framing the charges. I agree with the PM when he said “Such mindset harms human rights a lot.”
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Also read: Bhima Koregaon case: Three years of legal and rights violations (Newslaundry, Jan 2021)

Silence from Maharashtra authorities on letter on Father Stan Swamy’s jail torment

Silence from Maharashtra authorities on letter on Father Stan Swamy’s jail torment

Silence on letter on Father Stan Swamy’s jail torment

12/10/2021

The Telegraph / by Pheroze L. Vincent

A three-month-old letter by three Elgaar Parishad co-accused alleging “institutional murder” of Father Stan Swamy and accusing then Taloja prison superintendent Kaustubh Kurlekar of mistreating him has yet to evoke any response from the Maharashtra authorities it was sent to.
The letter alleged the 84-year-old Jesuit and tribal rights defender from Jharkhand was strip-searched “in front of the entire staff” when he was brought to the jail, and was kept in isolation so the Parkinson’s patient could not receive any help from fellow prisoners.
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Stan Swamy’s Death was an Institutional Murder: Co-inmates write to Uddhav Thackeray

06/10/2021

NewsClick / by Parth M.N.

The letter holds the superintendent of Taloja Prison, Kaustubh Kurlekar, responsible for Swamy’s death, and accuses him of purposely emasculating Swamy’s physical health and mental resolve.
Three political prisoners arrested in the Bhima Koregaon-Elgar Parishad case have written a letter to the Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Uddhav Thackeray. The letter claims that father Stan Swamy, a tribal rights activist based in Jharkhand, did not die a natural death. “It was an institutional murder,” says the letter, signed by human rights lawyer Surendra Gadling, and cultural activists Ramesh Gaichor and Sagar Gorkhe, who were eyewitnesses to the treatment meted out to Swamy in prison.
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Mangaluru college to name park after Stan Swamy despite being threatened by Hindutva groups

Mangaluru college to name park after Stan Swamy despite being threatened by Hindutva groups

Action sought against Hindutva groups for threatening Mangaluru college

09/10/2021

New Indian Express / by Express News Service

This blatantly illegal behaviour is a consequence of the free run that is being given to these fascist organisations in coastal Karnataka.
An open letter, endorsed by several organisations like the Campaign to Defend Democracy, All India People’s Forum (AIPF) and activists like P Sainath, Harsh Mander and others, has called upon the Dakshina Kannada district administration and the police to take immediate action against VHP, Bajrang Dal and other right-wing outfits for engaging in criminal intimidation and issuing threats to St Aloysius College, Mangaluru, following its decision to name one of its parks after tribal activist late Fr Stan Swamy.
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Mangaluru college to name park after Stan Swamy despite being threatened by Hindutva groups

09/10/2021

Scroll.in / by Scroll Staff

A VHP leader had said its members and those belonging to the ABVP and Bajrang Dal would not let St Aloysius College hold the naming ceremony.
A college in Mangaluru has said that it will go ahead and name a park after tribal rights activist Stan Swamy though Hindutva organisations have threatened to not allow it, reported The New Indian Express on Thursday…
Meanwhile, several organisations and activists have written to the Dakshina Kannada district administration to take action against the Hindutva leaders for threatening the college administration, reported The Hindu.
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Who are these Saffronists to tell Not to Name a Park after Fr Stan Swamy in a Jesuit Property?

07/10/2021

Mangaorean.com / by Alfie Dsouza, Team Mangalorean

Mangaluru: With all the present Tension, Communal Riots, Moral Policing, Hate, etc going on in our Country in its 75th year of Independence from the Britishers, it looks like India is no longer an ‘electoral democracy, but an ‘electoral autocracy’ instead, with much of the decline in democratic freedoms occurred after the present government came to power in 2014…
And here is one instance that arose when a press meet was arranged in the City by a few Right-wing groups opposing St Aloysius Institutions, Mangaluru decision to name a park after Fr Stan Swamy, in one of their institution premises in Beeri, in the outskirts of Mangaluru.
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Judicial probe plea on Stan Swamy arrest anniversary / Stan Swamy a Symbol for Justice & Hope

Judicial probe plea on Stan Swamy arrest anniversary / Stan Swamy a Symbol for Justice & Hope

Judicial probe plea on Stan Swamy arrest anniversary

09/10/2021

The Telegraph / by Animesh Bisoee

Over 150 rights activists staged a dharna for over two hours at the Raj Bhavan in Ranchi.
Protests and programmes were organised in Jharkhand, Kerala and Karnataka on Friday to mark the first anniversary of the arrest of octogenarian Jesuit priest and rights defender Father Stan Swamy who passed away in July this year in judicial custody.
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Dharna demands punishment of the perpetrators of Stan Swamy’s murder

By Jharkhand Janadhikar Mahasabha (Oct 8)

Oct 8, 2021. Dharna in front of Raj Bhavan in Ranchi

Various mass organizations and left parties demanding:
Punishment of the perpetrators of Stan’s murder!
Release all political prisoners!
Repeal UAPA!

Stan Swamy a Symbol for Justice & Hope

08/10/2021

By Jamsehdpur Jesuits


en | 3:15min | 2021
Fr. Jerry Cutinha, S.J, the Provincial of Jamshedpur Jesuits comes forward in recalling the footsteps of Stan Swamy as a symbol for Justice & Hope.
Watch video

by Teesta Setalvad (Oct 8):
LEST WE FORGET: A Day of Crime a Precious Life Lost! this day last yr, the Modi govt arrested Fr #StanSwamy via #UAPA. Never questioned in custody. Died in July, denied bail.

Testimony of Stan Swamy two days before his arrest

Oct 2020

Jharkhand Janadhikar Mahasabha / by Stan Swamy


en | 7:48min | 2020
Watch video

Also read:
Why An Aged Defender Of The Deprived Faces Terror Charges (article 14, Nov 2020)

Increasing spread of virus infection in Byculla prison is worrisome: Friends & Family of Sudha Bharadwaj

Increasing spread of virus infection in Byculla prison is worrisome: Friends & Family of Sudha Bharadwaj

By Friends & Family of Sudha Bharadwaj

Press Release
Friends and Family of Sudha Bharadwaj are extremely worried over the alarming and disturbing news of the rising Covid-19 infection in Byculla women’s jail forcing the authorities to seal the premise.
Last week, in a prison supervised phone conversation Koel Sen had with her mother Shoma Sen, former professor of English from Nagpur University, arrested in the Bhima Koregaon case and incarcerated for the last three years in Byculla prison without trial, it was informed that 20 inmates from the prison were infected, which appears to have now risen to 39!
Three women political prisoners, Shoma Sen, Sudha Bharadwaj and Jyoti Jagtap, all arrested in the Bhima Koregaon case for the past three years without trial and bail, are housed in the women’s prison of Byculla jail. Alarmingly, two out of the 20 infected are from the barrack that houses 40 senior women inmates, including 61-year-old Shoma Sen and 59-year-old Sudha Bharadwaj. The barrack of 40 senior citizen women inmates is fully vaccinated, however the virus infection of the two fully vaccinated women has sent fear and concern to all the women inside the prison and their family waiting for them in their homes. …

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