Hany Babu – Page 2 – free them all

Hany Babu moves Bombay High Court for bail

16/10/2024 Asha

Former Delhi University Professor Hany Babu Moves Bombay HC For Bail In Elgar Parishad-Maoist Links

17/10/2024

Free Press Journal / by Urvi Mahajani

When the plea was listed for hearing before a bench headed by Justice Bharati Dangre, on Wednesday, it was informed that another HC bench had decided bail pleas of co-accused. The bench then directed the HC registry to take appropriate steps to list the matter before the same bench.
Former Delhi University professor Hany Babu, an accused in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case, has approached the Bombay High Court again seeking bail in the Bhima Koregaon violence case of 2018.
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Bhima Koregaon accused Hany Babu moves Bombay High Court for bail

16/10/2024

Bar & Bench / by Sahyaja MS

Babu was arrested on July 28, 2020, on charges of being a member of the CPI (Maoist) and being involved in an alleged conspiracy to attack Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Delhi University professor Hany Babu has approached the Bombay High Court again seeking bail in the Bhima Koregaon violence case of 2018.
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Jailed academic Hany Babu moves Bombay High Court for bail

16/10/2024

Maktoob / by Maktoob Staff

Delhi University professor and human rights defender Hany Babu, who has been languishing in jail under the draconian UAPA since 2020, has approached the Bombay High Court again, seeking bail in the 2018 Bhima Koregaon violence case.
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Also read:
▪ Hany Babu completes four years in prison without bail, trial (Maktoobmedia.com / Jul 2024)
▪ Ex-DU prof Hany Babu withdraws bail plea in Supreme Court (Hindustan Times / May 2024)

How Long Is Too Long for an Undertrial Prisoner To Be Detained?

14/10/2024 Asha

The Wire / by Hany Babu and Surendra Gadling

If after conviction, the term of one’s sentence can be commuted to its one-third at the executive’s will, we propose that the same formula can be adopted in fixing the maximum period for which an undertrial prisoner can be detained.

Originally published on The Proof of Guilt blog, this post was written by Hany Babu and Surendra Gadling, who have been detained in prison as ‘undertrials’ since 2018 and 2020 respectively. This piece was published simultaneously with the Indian Constitutional Law and Philosophy blog.

Dedicated to the fellow undertrial prisoners languishing in the prisons of India with the hope that the system would sooner than later wake up to their plight; and that one day prisons, if not still obsolete, would at least have become places where those proven guilty are held, and not places that incarcerate those who are presumed to be innocent.
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Learning Curve: Teachers Are Expected To Guide Us, But Are Themselves Under Fire

09/09/2024 Asha

Free Press Journal / by Vrijendra

The state of our teachers in higher education continues to become more and more perilous each passing year
As I write this, one more Teachers’ Day (September 5) has gone. Sadly, there is little to celebrate as the state of our teachers at all levels (let me confine it to teachers in higher education: in our colleges and universities and other institutions of higher education) continues to become more and more perilous each passing year.
… Finally, Dr Hany Babu, a DU professor and an anti-caste activist, completed four years in jail on July 28, 2024, without bail and no signs of an early trial. He was arrested under the UAPA in the Bhima-Koregaon Elgar Parishad case, along with other leading activists and academicians.
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Also read:
▪ Hany Babu completes four years in prison without bail, trial (Maktoobmedia.com / Jul 2024)
▪ Three years ago on this day Hany Babu was arrested in the infamous Bhima Koregaon case (Maktoobmedia.com / Jul 2024)

Hany Babu completes four years in prison without bail, trial

28/07/2024 Asha

by Progressive Students’ Association – JNU / @Psa_jnu (Jul 28):
Four Years of Wrongful Incarceration.
Release Prof. Hany Babu!
Repeal UAPA! Free BK15!
Free All Political Prisoners!
#freehanybabu #freebk16 #repealUAPA #FreeAllPoliticalPrisoners

by Deepak Kumar / @rencho79130 (Jul 28):
End 4 Years Wrongful Incarceration in Bhima Koregaon case.
Release Professor Hany Babu Immediately
#Bhimakoregaon #bk16 #SupremeCourtOfIndia

by The Polis Project / @project_polis (Jul 28):

Actor, poet, and writer Danish Husain ( @DanHusain ) reads a poignant poem “For Sachidanandan” written by Professor Dr. Hany Babu, one of the prisoners in the Bhima Koregaon-Elgar Parishad case.
Today, 28 July 2024, marks four years of his incarceration under the draconian UAPA
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Hany Babu completes four years in prison without bail, trial

28/07/2024

Maktoob / by Maktoob Staff

Delhi University professor and noted academic Dr. Hany Babu, who is one of the UAPA prisoners in the Bhima Koregaon-Elgar Parishad case, completed four years of incarceration on Sunday, 28 July, 2024.
On 28 July, 2020, the National Investigation Agency arrested Babu, an anti-caste activist and a staunch proponent of social justice.
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Also read:
▪ BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: JENNY ROWENA ON THE FEAR OF PRISONS AND THE BRAHMINICAL SYSTEM BEHIND IT (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)
▪ Ex-DU prof Hany Babu withdraws bail plea in Supreme Court (Hindustan Times / May 2024)

At UN Human Rights Review, PEN International Questions Crackdown on Dissent in India

18/07/2024 Asha

At UN Human Rights Review, PEN International Questions Crackdown on Dissent in India

18/07/2024

The Wire / by The Wire Staff

The writers’ body cited a growing number of writers, journalists, academics and other critics of the government being subjected to legal harassment in the form of arbitrary arrests and prolonged detentions without trial.
…
The writers’ body mentioned the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) being used as a tool to “unjustly prosecute” the government’s critics. Citing the detention of those accused in the Bhima Koregaon/Elgar Parishad case, the report highlighted the ill treatment of professor Hany Babu and poet Varavara Rao, and denial of bail despite medical grounds.
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Read PEN International’s full report here

‘28% rise in sedition cases’: Top global NGO alliance rates India’s civil space ‘repressed’

17/07/2024

Counterview / by Rajiv Shah

Rating India’s civic space as repressed, Civicus, a global civil society alliance, in its new report submitted to the UN Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) on the state of civic space in the country has said that the use of sedition law against the Modi government’s critics continues. “Under the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, sedition cases have increased by 28 per cent with over 500 cases against more than 7,000 people”, it says.
Read more

Also read:
▪ India: Submission to the UN Human Rights Committee on the deterioration of civic space (CIVICUS /Jul 2024)
Read/download full submission
▪ RSF and national civil society organisations give new government 10 recommendations to guarantee press freedom (RSF / June 2024)
▪ India among top 10 countries to jail writers, academics in 2021, shows Pen America’s report (Scroll.in / Apr 2022)
▪ International Mother Language Day: Take Action for Hany Babu (Pen International | Feb 2022)
▪ Joint Statement: Freedom for Varavara Rao (Pen International | Oct 2021)
▪ A Dark Day for Democracy and Freedom of Expression (Pen International | Aug 2018)

Release India’s Political Prisoners / Video: 10 Political prisoners of the Modi era

03/07/2024 Asha

Jacobin.com / by Safa Ahmed

Since reaching power, Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party has jailed political critics using bogus terrorism and incitement charges. But an electoral setback for his party offers hope of change in India and a crack in his authoritarian Hindutva order.
… There are those who do make it out of prison. But in one harrowing case, imprisonment under the UAPA became a death sentence. In 2018, violent clashes broke out between Dalits and Hindu militant groups in Bhima Koregaon, a village in Maharashtra state. Instead of arresting any militants, police in the state arrested sixteen eminent activists, academics, and lawyers over the next two years — all of whom were involved in civil rights work supporting marginalized Dalits and tribal Adivasi communities.
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Video: Meet 10 ‘political prisoners’ of the Narendra Modi regime in jail without trial

By The Telegraph

en | 4:45 | 2024
From Kashmir to Pune, from the barrage of detainees from the CAA-NRC protests to the Delhi riots case accused to the infamous Bhima Koregaon arrests, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s time in office has been marked by a number of ‘political prisoners’ who remain indefinitely behind bars, with their trials still pending.
Watch video

Also Read:
▪ How The Indian Prison System Denies Basic Freedoms, Rights And Dignity To Political Prisoners (The Polis Project / June 2024)
▪ The Opposition Must Demand the Release of all Political Prisoners (The Wire / June 2024)
▪ Punished without trial: How India’s political prisoners are being denied basic rights in jail (Scroll.in / Aug 2022)
▪ India’s Hindu Nationalist Project Relies on Brutal Repression (Jacobinmag / April 2021)

BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: JENNY ROWENA ON THE FEAR OF PRISONS AND THE BRAHMINICAL SYSTEM BEHIND IT

22/06/2024 Asha

To mark six years of the arbitrary arrests and imprisonment of political dissidents in the Bhima Koregaon case, The Polis Project is publishing a series of writings by the BK-16, and their families, friends and partners. By describing various aspects of the past six years, the series offers a glimpse into the BK-16’s lives inside prison, as well as the struggles of their loved ones outside. Each piece in the series is complemented by Arun Ferreira’s striking and evocative artwork.

Credits: Drawing by Arun Ferreira / The Polis Project

The Polis Project / by Jenny Rowena

As a space that takes away our liberties, marked by deep deprivation and suffering, the prison often gets framed as the point at which the liveable modern life ends. The fear of prisons, then, becomes all-pervading, with language itself constantly pointing to it as a dead end. Thus, for the ordinary person, the police and the prison system evoke extreme anxiety, and they design their lives to evade any encounters with it. Yet, those who come face to face with this system observe not an end, but the continuing flow of life inside, behind massive, impenetrable walls, even as their family and friends navigate a completely new reality outside. For academics like Hany Babu, the twelfth person incarcerated in the Bhima Koregaon case, who was active in social justice projects in the university space, the prison also offers a glimpse into the stark structural inequalities of Indian society and the many resistances against them.
Read more

Also read:
▪ BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: ANAND TELTUMBDE REFLECTS ON HIS ARREST AND INCARCERATION (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)
▪ BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: STORIES OF LOVE, MURDER AND CHILD MARRIAGE FROM SHOMA SEN’S YEARS IN PRISONS (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)
▪ BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: ARUN FERREIRA ON THE FARCE AND TRAGEDY OF THE PANDEMIC IN PRISON (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)
▪ BK-16 PRISON DIARIES: VERNON GONSALVES ON THE STRUGGLE TO READ AND WRITE BEHIND BARS (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)
▪ INTRODUCING THE BK-16 PRISON DIARIES SERIES (THE POLIS PROJECT / JUNE 2024)

Meet 10 ‘political prisoners’ of the Narendra Modi regime in jail without trial

12/06/2024 Asha

The Telegraph / by Telegraph Web Desk

From Kashmir to Pune, here are some of the most high-profile names in India’s prisons for whom the criminal justice process has been made the punishment
From the barrage of detainees from the CAA-NRC protests to the infamous Bhima Koregaon arrests, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s time in office has been marked by a number of ‘political prisoners’ who remain indefinitely behind bars, with their trials still pending.
Read more

Also read:
▪ 7/16 Bhima Koregaon Accused Get Bail, Courts Raise Prima Facie Doubts About Evidence (Live Law / May 2024)
▪ UAPA – CRIMINALISING DISSENT AND STATE TERROR – Study of UAPA Abuse in India, 2009-2022 (PUCL / Sep 2022). Download report

Hany Babu withdraws bail plea in Supreme Court; says will approach Bombay High Court afresh

03/05/2024 Asha

Ex-DU prof Hany Babu withdraws bail plea in Supreme Court

03/05/2024

Hindustan Times / by Abraham Thomas

A bench of justices allowed the petition to be withdrawn as “not pressed” while recording the statement of Babu’s lawyer Payoshi Roy that he would like to pursue the matter before the high court
The Supreme Court on Friday allowed former Delhi University (DU) professor Hany Babu, who is an accused in the Bhima Koregaon violence case, to withdraw his bail plea citing “change of circumstance” claiming that he would be moving the Bombay high court which had granted bail to five co-accused.
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Professor Hany Babu withdraws bail plea from Supreme Court

03/05/2024

Bar & Bench / by Abhimanyu Hazarika

A Bench of Justices Bela M Trivedi and Pankaj Mithal was slated to hear the matter today when Babu’s counsel informed the Court that the bail plea was being withdrawn.
Professor Hany Babu, an accused in the 2018 Bhima Koregaon violence case, withdrew his bail plea from the Supreme Court today citing a change in circumstances [Hany Babu vs National Investigation Agency and anr].
Read more

Also read:
▪ Branded Maoist, ex-political prisoners narrate how they were ‘wrongfully’ incarcerated (Counterview.net / March 2024)
▪ SC notice to Maharashtra, NIA on bail plea of DU professor Hany Babu (The Hindu / Jan 2024)
▪ Bombay HC rejects Hany Babu’s bail plea: ‘Prime facie conspired and abetted terrorist act’ (The Indian Express / Sep 2022)
▪ No bail; ‘prima facie evidence Hany Babu part of Maoist outfit’: court (The Indian Express / Feb 2022)

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

21/03/2024 Maya

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.
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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.”
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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

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