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Tag: prison conditions

They Don’t Want us to Sing our Songs, Read our Poems

They Don’t Want us to Sing our Songs, Read our Poems

Newsclick / by Parth MN

Moved by the death of anti-caste activist Vira Sathidar, Ramesh Gaichor, an Elgar case accused, had penned a poem in Taloja prison, but the jail chief found it ‘objectionable’ for circulation. Gaichor has moved the court.
Civil and Sessions Court, complaining against one of its prisoners, Ramesh Gaichor. Gaichor, one of the 16 political prisoners arrested in the Elgar Parishad-Bhima Koregaon case, had written a poem as a tribute to Vira Sathidar, a committed anti-caste activist and an Ambedkarite, who died of COVID-19 in April 2021.
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10 prisoners accuse ex-jail superintendent of ‘political censorship’

10 prisoners accuse ex-jail superintendent of ‘political censorship’

Prisoners accuse ex-jail superintendent of ‘political censorship’

27/08/2021

Sabrang / by Sabrangindia

The former Taloja Jail Superintendent Kaustubh Kurlekar has been allegedly saving copies of the letter exchanged between the accused and their family and lawyers
Ten activists, who have been falsely implicated in the Bhima Koregaon violence case, have written to the Home Minister of Maharashtra, alleging that Taloja Central Jail’s former Superintendent Kaustubh Kurlekar has been taking scans and saving copies of the letters exchanged between them and their family and advocates.
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10 Elgaar Parishad accused allege ‘political censorship’ by jail authorities

27/08/2021

The Hindu / by Sonam Saigal

Kaustubh Kurlekar of Taloja jail scans and saves letters, they have said in a letter to State Home Minister
Ten accused in the Elgar Parishad case have written a letter to Home Minister of Maharashtra on Thursday alleging that Taloja Central Jail’s Superintendent Kaustubh Kurlekar scans and saves copies of letters written by them to their family and advocates.
The letter written on Thursday has been signed by Anand Teltumbde, Gautam Navlakha, Arun Ferreira, Vernon Gonsalves, Mahesh Raut, Sudhir Dhawale, Surendra Gadling, Rona Wilson, Sagar Gorkhe and Ramesh Gaichor.
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Newswire’s special issue dedicated to Father Stan Swamy / AILAJ’s August issue

Newswire’s special issue dedicated to Father Stan Swamy / AILAJ’s August issue

Newswire – A special issue dedicated to Father Stan Swamy

22/08/2021

By India Civil Watch

Here’s what you will find inside Newswire 9
1. Spotlight: South Asian Dalit Adivasi Network (SADAN), Canada
2. Vidya Bhushan Rawat, Interview with Rana Khan
3. The Compassionate Revolution of Saint Stan Swamy (1937 – 2021), Shaj Mohan and Divya Dwivedi
4. Under the Mango tree, Madhumita Dutta
5. Stan Swamy in the eyes of a Thirteen Year old, Ananya Mamatha Anil
6. This Month in History, Balmurli Natarajan
7. Poetry!
Download here

AILAJ’s August issue

19/08/2021

By All India Lawyers´Association for Justice (A)

AILAJ’s August issue is out! It has pieces on Pegasus, UAPA, Father Stan Swamy and the plight of prisoners in light of the pandemic. It also contains all the representations AILAJ has made to various judicial and state functionaries.

Download here

Independence Day / Resign Modi: Banner dropped from London’s Westminster Bridge

Independence Day / Resign Modi: Banner dropped from London’s Westminster Bridge

“Resign Modi”: Independence Day banner dropped from London’s Westminster Bridge

15/08/2021

The Caravan / by Diaspora Members and Friends of India in the UK

On the occasion of Indian Independence Day, a group of diaspora Indian activists in the United Kingdom dropped a banner from London’s Westminster Bridge, demanding Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s resignation…

Press release issued by the group:
… The Modi regime has imprisoned thousands of people whose only ‘crime’ has been to dissent, to advocate for the most marginalised and oppressed groups, or to take part in nonviolent protests, under draconian laws like the UAPA. Elderly and vulnerable academics and lawyers, students and young activists, including thousands of Adivasi youth, are locked up in overcrowded and unhygienic conditions in the middle of a pandemic.
Read full statement

Demand Justice India: International protest


en | 10:34min | 2021

By International Coalition for Justice in India

They stood by the marginalised. They protected lands, hills and forests from mining companies. They stood up to protect minorities. They did not trust the Indian government”s false promises. They are students, academics, lawyers, journalists and social activists, in thousands, are imprisoned in over-crowded prisons. An 84-year old Jesuit priest and human rights defender, Father Stan Swamy, has passed away while waiting for trail.
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August 15: Zurich – Lotika for release of BK-16 – Berlin – Dundee

How the system broke Stan Swamy: A cell mate recalls the activist’s last days in prison

How the system broke Stan Swamy: A cell mate recalls the activist’s last days in prison

Scroll.in / by Arun Ferreira

Although we received news by late evening on October 8, 2020, of Father Stan Swamy’s arrest, we were quite shocked to see him the next morning in the adjourning barrack conversing with inmates in his impeccable Hindi.
I was at that time lodged in a cell at the prison hospital with my co- accused Varavara Rao (or VV) and Vernon Gonsalves. It was part of our daily routine for VV and I to do a couple of rounds in his wheelchair before the morning breakfast. The three of us had assumed that the National Investigation Agency would want Stan’s custodial interrogation and hence it would not be until a couple of days before he would be sent to judicial custody i.e. Prison.
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Mary Lawlor: Inhumane prison conditions for Bhima Koregaon Human Rights Defenders

Mary Lawlor: Inhumane prison conditions for Bhima Koregaon Human Rights Defenders

By Mary Lawlor, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders

On 11 June 2021, I wrote a letter jointly with two other UN experts on the alleged inhumane prison conditions and deteriorating condition of 15 human rights defenders, as well as Varavara Rao who was granted medical bail.
Of pressing concern was the inhumane prison conditions and deteriorating health of the human rights defenders. The death of Fr. Stan Swamy shortly after this communication was written demonstrate the severity of the conditions in which the human rights defenders are being held. It is haunting to now read how Fr. Swamy’s requests to be transferred to hospital to receive treatment were initially denied repeatedly.
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Bombay High Court Refuses To Stay Prison Transfer Order Of Bhima Koregaon Accused

Bombay High Court Refuses To Stay Prison Transfer Order Of Bhima Koregaon Accused

Bombay High Court Refuses To Stay Prison Transfer Order Of Bhima Koregaon Accused

06/08/2021

Live Law / by Sharmeen Hakim

The Bombay High Court on Friday observed that the accused in the Bhima Koregaon – Elgar Parishad Case resisting their transfer out of Taloja Prison, despite repeatedly complaining about the prison authorities there, is confusing and paradoxical.
The bench refused to stay the transfer orders without hearing the State and adjourned the matter to Wednesday after the State sought time.
The court was seized with one plea filed by the kin of accused Dalit scholar Anand Teltumbde, civil rights lawyer Surendra Gadling and activist Sudhir Dhawale’s friend. Tribal rights activist Mahesh Raut has filed the second plea.
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Victimized For Demanding Their Rights as Prisoners: Kin of Bhima Koregaon Move Bombay High Court Against Prison Transfer Orders

03/08/2021

Live Law / by Sharmeen Hakim

The petition accuses Taloja’s previous Superintendent of initiating the transfers to cover up violations of the rights guaranteed under The Prisons Act, 1894
Kin of three accused in the Bhima Koregaon – Elgar Parishad Case have approached the Bombay High Court challenging three orders to transfer ten accused out of Taloja Central Prison to any other prison in Maharashtra.
The petition states that Special NIA Judge DE Kothalikar’s orders, repeatedly permitting their transfers without issuing a notice, giving a hearing to them or recording reasons, violates principles of natural justice.
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Kin of Surendra Galding, Anand Teltumbde, Sudhir Dhawale move Bombay HC challenging transfer from Taloja jail

03/08/2021

Bar & Benach / by Neha Joshi

Immediate family members of Dr. Anand Teltumbde, Surendra Gadling and Sudhir Dhawale, accused in the Bhima Koregaon case of 2018, have approached the Bombay High Court challenging the decision to transfer them out of Taloja Central Prison to any other “unspecified prison” in the State.
The petitioners said the Superintendent was attempting to transfer the accused, by dividing them and sending them to separate jails and it was “an act of victimization for having demanded their rights as prisoners.
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For India’s undertrials, the legal process is the punishment

For India’s undertrials, the legal process is the punishment


Drawing by Arun Ferreira

The Indian Express / by Nandita Rao

After the death of Stan Swamy, questions about the conditions of jails and treatment of the incarcerated have been raised anew
Michel Foucault, in Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, wrote, “punishments like imprisonment – mere loss of liberty – has never functioned without a certain additional element of punishment that certainly concerns the body itself: rationing of food, sexual deprivation, corporal punishment, solitary confinement… There remains, therefore, a trace of ‘torture’ in the modern mechanisms of criminal justice.”
The National Crime Records Bureau data reports the death of over 1,800 prisoners in the year 2018. An estimated 70 per cent of prison inmates are undertrials, so it can be safely assumed that a large percentage of those dying in prison are not convicted of any offence.
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Bombay HC directs NIA, prison authorities to examine Stan Swamy’s medical reports

Bombay HC directs NIA, prison authorities to examine Stan Swamy’s medical reports


Bangalore, July 14

Scroll.in / by Scroll Staff

Swamy’s lawyer has blamed the central agency and Taloja Jail authorities for the activist’s death.
The Bombay High Court on Tuesday directed the National Investigation Agency and the Maharashtra prison department to examine the medical reports of tribal rights activist Stan Swamy, who died on July 5, reported the Hindustan Times.
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Stan Swamy death: Many other Bhima Koregaon accused need medical treatment too, say relatives

Stan Swamy death: Many other Bhima Koregaon accused need medical treatment too, say relatives


Prison diaries. Drawing by Arun Ferreira

Scroll.in /by Vijayta Lalwani

Most of those imprisoned in the case are over 50 and suffer from a range of conditions.
The death of activist Stan Swamy in custody on Monday has caused palpable anxiety among the families of the other 15 people accused in the Bhima Koregaon case. The 84-year-old Jesuit priest died in a hospital in Mumbai after his plea for bail was turned down several times, despite suffering from Parkinson’s disease and later Covid-19.
Fourteen of the people accused in the case remain in prison in Maharashtra, charged under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act for allegedly conspiring to set off caste violence in a village near Pune in 2018.
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Also read: The Institutional Murder of Fr. Stan Swamy – A statement by the family members and friends of the BK-16 (July 6, 2021)