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Tag: Rona Wilson

Rona Wilson’s bail plea to attend kin’s wedding rejected

Rona Wilson’s bail plea to attend kin’s wedding rejected

Elgar accused’s bail plea to attend kin’s wedding rejected

17/12/2024

Times of India / by Rebecca Samervel

A special NIA court had rejected the interim bail plea of activist and Elgar Parishad accused Rona Wilson, who sought his temporary release next month to attend the wedding of his cousin’s daughter. Observing that the relationship between him and the to-be bride is quite distant, the judge said, “His attendance at the marriage is not at all necessary. Application… hereby stands rejected.”
The order was pronounced on Friday but its detailed copy was made available on Tuesday. Wilson is among the eight accused still in custody in the case.
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NIA court refuses bail to activist Rona Wilson

18/12/2024

Hindustan Times / by Revu Suresh

A special NIA court last week rejected the temporary bail plea filed by activist Rona Wilson, who is lodged at the Taloja central jail in connection with the Bhima Koregaon case. Wilson had sought interim bail to attend the wedding ceremony of his niece, from January 6 to January 20, 2025. However, special judge Chakor S Baviskar rejected the plea on December 13, observing that Wilson’s attendance was not at all necessary as the relation was quite distant.
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Also Read:
▪ Meet 10 ‘political prisoners’ of the Narendra Modi regime in jail without trial (Telegraph / Jul 2024)
▪ Bombay HC rejects default bail of five accused in Bhima Koregaon case (Scroll.in / Jul 2024)
▪ Incriminating evidence planted in computers: The Trojan solved the Bhima Koregaon case! (Anchored Narratives / Jan 2023)
▪ Cyber Attackers Who Targeted Rona Wilson Could Have Been Engaged by Same Entity: Report (The Wire / Feb 2022)

Elgar Parishad Prisoners’ Hunger Strike Marks a Momentous Victory for Prison Rights

Elgar Parishad Prisoners’ Hunger Strike Marks a Momentous Victory for Prison Rights

Credits: Drawing by Arun Ferreira / The Polis Project

The Polis Project / by Prashant Rahi

On October 24, the lawyers and activists accused in the Elgar Parishad case were brought to court from Taloja Central Jail for their hearing. This bare minimum satisfaction of their basic legal right to be present for their case had become far from routine. It happened for the first time in nearly two months, after many hearings held in their absence, and despite specific directions from the court for their production. In fact, it took a hunger strike by seven of the accused – the latest of numerous protests by the BK-16 over the denial of bare necessities and basic rights – for the prison administration to concede to their demands. 
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Also read:
▪ BK-16 Prison Diaries (By The Polis Project)
▪ Elgar Parishad case accused seeks contempt action against Navi Mumbai cop (India Today / Oct 25, 2024)
▪ Elgaar Parishad case undertrials on protest path for not being produced in court for successive hearings (The Telegraph / Oct 20, 2024)
▪ Not Produced in Court Despite Directions, Seven Elgar Parishad Accused Go on Hunger Strike (The Wire / Oct 18, 2024)

G.N. Saibaba’s Lifelong Campaign Was Against the Violence of Silencing

G.N. Saibaba’s Lifelong Campaign Was Against the Violence of Silencing

The Wire / by Rona Wilson

Activist Rona Wilson, incarcerated in the Elgar Parishad case that has still not gone into trial, pens a note for a friend.

“I have lived all my conscious life on the campuses of learning and teaching in search of knowledge, love and freedom. In the course of this search, I learnt that freedom for a few was no freedom.”

– G.N. Saibaba, from Why Do You Fear My Way So Much? Poems and Letters from Prison

The untimely death of G.N. Saibaba (fondly known as Sai among his friends and well-wishers) when he was about to start his life afresh after acquittal betrays the brutality and inhumanity that the state had meted out to him during his long incarceration.
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Also read/watch:
▪ G.N. Saibaba’s Life Is Not Just a Chronicle of His Times, but Also What the Times Refused to Chronicle (The Wire / Oct 2024)
▪ Was the trial judge who convicted G.N. Saibaba biased? We will never know, and that is part of the injustice (The Leaflet / March 2024)
▪ Five Years of Incarceration – and the Audacity of Hope (The Wire | Rona Wilson | Jul 2023)

▪ Video: State’s Job is to Serve People, Not Punish Them: G N Saibaba


en | 38:33 | 2024

Newsclick / by Newsclick Team

Former DU professor G.N. Saibaba, who passed away in Hyderabad on Saturday, had recounted his harrowing ordeal during 10 years in jail at a press conference in New Delhi in March this year.
Watch video

Hunger strike called off for now | Not Produced in Court Despite Directions – Elgar Parishad Accused Go on Hunger Strike

Hunger strike called off for now | Not Produced in Court Despite Directions – Elgar Parishad Accused Go on Hunger Strike

Elgaar Parishad case undertrials on protest path for not being produced in court for successive hearings

20/10/2024

The Telegraph / by Pheroze L. Vincent

Non-availability of police escorts is a common reason for undertrials not being produced in courts across India
Seven inmates at the Taloja Central Prison in Navi Mumbai, awaiting trial in the 2018 Elgaar Parishad case, on Saturday evening ended the hunger strike that they had started on Friday to protest against police who didn’t produce them in court for successive hearings.
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by Sukanya Shantha @ sukanyashantha (Oct 20)

Update: The hunger strike has been called off for now.
The prison officials submitted an urgent application to the court & have assured them that they’ll be a produced before the NIA court on Oct 24.
If the seven men aren’t presented then, they plan to resume their hunger strike.

Not Produced in Court Despite Directions, Seven Elgar Parishad Accused Go on Hunger Strike

18/10/2024

The Wire / by The Wire Staff

The activists have not been produced before the court for the last three hearings in the case. Seven human rights defenders facing prolonged incarceration in the infamous Elgar Parishad case went on a hunger strike on Friday (October 18).
The activists have not been produced before the court for the last three hearings in the case. Today, despite a court order, the Navi Mumbai police failed to provide an escort team to take the incarcerated individuals from the Taloja central prison to the special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court located in south Mumbai, prompting the activists to announce their hunger strike.
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The SC Is Making Bail Easier In Terrorism, Money Laundering Cases – Except When It Ignores Itself

The SC Is Making Bail Easier In Terrorism, Money Laundering Cases – Except When It Ignores Itself

Article 14 / by Areeb Uddin Ahmed

11 Supreme Court rulings over 10 months appear to be reshaping bail jurisprudence in India, especially with regard to India’s terrorism and money laundering laws, often used to incarcerate many without bail for years. Despite these landmark judgements, the Supreme Court has also avoided deciding bail on high-profile cases important to the government, in so doing ignoring its own rulings.
At least 11 Supreme Court rulings over 10 months granting bail appear to be gradually reshaping bail jurisprudence in India, especially with regard to India’s terrorism and money laundering laws. 
The restrictive bail provisions of these laws have been frequently used to keep accused, mostly protestors, poets, Opposition politicians, dissidents, academics and artists, in jail with no sign of trial.
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Also read:
▪ SC adjourns hearing on bail plea of Bhima Koregaon case accused Jyoti Jagtap (Hindustan Times / Jul 2024)
▪ Bombay HC rejects default bail of five accused in Bhima Koregaon case (Scroll.in / Jul 2024)
▪ ‘Ominous portents’: Why High Court staying its own bail orders in Bhima Koregaon case is troubling (Scroll.in / Dec 2023)
▪ Inconsistencies in Bail Orders Mean Individual Liberty Is the Outcome of Judicial Lottery (The Wire / Oct 2022)

How the State uses ‘national security’ to spellbind the process of justice

How the State uses ‘national security’ to spellbind the process of justice

The Leaflet / by Gursimran Kaur Bakshi

As the J&K High Court recently reiterated, allegations of ‘terrorism’ have become a copy-paste template that the State uses to muffle dissent, but why do courts freeze the process of criminal justice on hearing ‘national security’?
…
The jurisprudence has resulted in widening the coercive powers of the police and investigation agencies. Since the court only forms its assessment on broad probabilities, a pattern has emerged from the evidence submitted by the prosecution in a wide range of UAPA cases where there is a similarity in terms of enormous allegations running into thousands of pages, generalised testimonies of witnesses; most of which are protected witnesses, lack of incriminating evidence and heavy reliance on electronic evidence and literature.
There are similarities in three specific instances: those arrested in the backdrop of the 2018 Bhima-Koregaon violence, deoperationalisation of Article 370, and 2020 Northeast Delhi riots.
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Also read:
▪ Article 21 ‘overturned’ by new criminal laws: Lawyers, activists remember Stan Swamy (Counterview / Jul 2024)
▪ Authorities must immediately repeal repressive new criminal laws (Amnesty International / Jul 2024)
▪ A New Bill Shows Maharashtra Wants to Become a Police State Before Combatting Left-Wing Extremism (The Wire 7 Jul 2024)
▪ AI Report: India’s exploitation of terrorism financing assessments to target the civil society (Amnesty.org / Sep 2023)
▪ Maharashtra: Activists, Lawyers Added to ‘Union War Book’, Listed as ‘Enemies of the State’ (The Wire / Jul 2021)

HC Rejects Default Bail To Surendra Gadling, Shoma Sen, Mahesh Raut, Sudhir Dhawade & Rona Wilson

HC Rejects Default Bail To Surendra Gadling, Shoma Sen, Mahesh Raut, Sudhir Dhawade & Rona Wilson

Bombay HC rejects default bail of five accused in Bhima Koregaon case

26/07/2024

Scroll.in / by Scroll Staff

The petitioners had moved the High court challenging special court orders in 2022 that denied them default bail.
The Bombay High Court on Friday rejected the default bail petitions of five persons accused in the Bhima Koregaon case, Bar and Bench reported.
A division bench of Justices AS Gadkari and Shyam C Chandak issued the order on petitions filed by lawyer Surendra Gadling, activist and researcher Rona Wilson, poet and political commentator Sudhir Dhawale, forest rights activist Mahesh Raut, and former Nagpur University professor Shoma Sen.
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Bombay High Court rejects default bail of five accused

26/07/2024

Bar & Bench / by Satyendra Wankhade

A Division Bench of Justices AS Gadkari and Shyam C Chandak passed the order on pleas filed by the five accused challenging 2022 special court orders that denied them default bail.
The Bombay High Court on Friday denied default bail to Surendra Gadling, Mahesh Raut, Rona Wilson, Sudhir Dhawale and Shoma Sen in connection with the Bhima Koregaon violence case.
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Bombay HC dismisses default bail pleas of 5 accused in Elgaar Parishad case

26/07/2024

The Indian Express / by Express News Service

The case dates back to the Elgaar Parishad event held in Shaniwar Wada in Pune on December 31, 2017, following which violent clashes broke out the next day between Maratha and Dalit groups near Bhima Koregaon in Maharashtra.
The Bombay High Court on Friday dismissed default bail pleas by five Elgaar Parishad case accused Surendra Gadling, Rona Wilson, Sudhir Dhawale, Mahesh Raut and Shoma Sen who were arrested by the Pune police in June 2018. The Supreme Court had granted regular bail to Sen in April.
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Bombay High Court Rejects Default Bail To Surendra Gadling, Shoma Sen, Mahesh Raut, Sudhir Dhawade & Rona Wilson

26/07/2024

Live Law / by Narsi Benwal

The Bombay High Court today rejected the default bail to Dalit rights’ activist and advocate Surendra Gadling and co-accused Mahesh Raut, in the infamous Elgar Parishad case of 2018.
A division bench of Justices Ajay Gadkari and Shyam Chandak pronounced the order in their chamber. Bail was also denied to Nagpur University professor Shoma Sen, Sudhir Dhawade and researcher Rona Wilson.
Read more

Also Read:
▪ Explained: The Shoma Sen bail judgment (The Leaflet / Apr 2024)
▪ 4 accused seek bail from Bombay HC on parity with Sudha Bharadwaj (India Today / March 2023)
▪ Bombay HC grants default bail to Sudha Bharadwaj, but declines the same to eight other accused (The Leaflet / Dec 2021)

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

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

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

Read more: Meet 10 ‘political prisoners’ of the Narendra Modi regime in jail without trial (The Telegraph / June 2024)

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)

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

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

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

In What Language Does Truth Speak to A Tormented People. Statement by Sudhir, Rona, Surendra & Mahesh

In What Language Does Truth Speak to A Tormented People. Statement by Sudhir, Rona, Surendra & Mahesh

The Wire / by Sudhir Dhawale, Rona Wilson, Surendra Gadling and Mahesh Raut

Intimations on the sixth year of continuing incarceration of the BK-16.
We live in a moment where truth is treason. Under the fascist onslaught of Brahmanical Hindutva, truth has become consumed with fear – the fear of being watched, being surveilled, being criminalised, neutralised, or even eliminated. But the fear, at the end, is itself a whistleblower.
We, the BK 16, known after the eponymous Bhima Koregaon case, complete six years of incarceration on June 6, 2024 under the stringent anti-terror law, UAPA [Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act], where the onus is on the accused to prove their innocence; under heavy odds against the Modi dispensation that dubs speaking truth to power treason, anti-Hindu, an act of terror.
Read full statement

Also read:

‘We are all prisoners of conscience’, say those facing trial in Bhima Koregaon case on the occasion of fourth anniversary of their arrests (The Leaflet / June 2022)