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Tag: Vernon Gonsalves

81 more Arthur Road inmates test positive

81 more Arthur Road inmates test positive


Drawing by Arun Ferreira

The Hindu / by Gautam S. Mengle and Sonam Saigal

One positive at Byculla women’s jail.
As many as 81 more inmates at the Arthur Road Central Jail tested positive for COVID-19 on Sunday, taking the number of cases among prisoners lodged there to 158. A prisoner at the women’s prison in Byculla has also tested positive.
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SUPERINTENDENT OF ARTHUR ROAD JAIN IN QUARANTINE

09/04/2020

Mumbai Mirror / by Somendra Sharma and David Delima

… Families of prisoners and undertrials in jails across the city made frantic calls to their lawyers on Friday morning, after hearing the news that 103 people lodged at Arthur Road jail had tested positive for Covid-19 …
“I have not spoken to my father properly since February, when I last saw him in court. I don’t know if he is safe as there as been zero communication from the authorities. We have no way of getting in touch with any official,” said Sagar Gonsalves, son of incarcerated activist Vernon Gonsalves.
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103 TEST COVID-19 POSITIVE IN MUMBAI’S ARTHUR ROAD JAIL

07/04/2020

The Wire / by Sukanya Shantha

The Maharashtra home department had promised to release over 11,000 prisoners but so far fewer than 7,000 have been released as the health crisis rages.
Mumbai: The delay in the process of decongesting Maharashtra’s prisons has already led to the first major outbreak of COVID-19 in Mumbai’s Arthur Road central prison.
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Vernon Gonsalves has to spend his birthday once more in a prison cell

Vernon Gonsalves has to spend his birthday once more in a prison cell

By Sagar Abraham-Gonsalves / Documented by Mumbai Rises To Save Democracy

22. April
It is my father’s birthday today. He turns 63. Due to the brutality of our government and the failure of our judiciary he will be spending his birthday in a prison cell. At the time of a serious global pandemic when he falls in the category of people most vulnerable he will be spending his birthday in an overcrowded prison with no adequate health facilities.
Today I thought of sharing a about how he has been spending his time in the the past year and a half in Yerwada prison, Pune.
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ABA calls for release of Bhima-Koregaon accused

ABA calls for release of Bhima-Koregaon accused

The Hindu / by Sonam Saigal

Activists age, health issues put them at high risk amid pandemic, says centre.
The American Bar Association’s (ABA)’s Center for Human Rights has called for the release of all human rights defenders arrested in the Bhima-Koregaon violence case in the interest of flattening the COVID-19 curve, upholding the fundamental rights of detainees and enhancing national security, as their detention was arbitrary.
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Also read: American Bar Association’s report (Oct 2019)
The Preliminary Fair Trial Report: Bhima Koregaon

Sign Petition: Release The Bhima Koregaon Political Prisoners

Sign Petition: Release The Bhima Koregaon Political Prisoners

By Concerned Citizens / #NoJailDuringCovid

This appeal is being written to highlight how the activists, lawyers and teachers arrested in what has now come to be known as the Bhima Koregaon/ Elgaar Parishad case should be released keeping in mind the direction of United Nations and to highlight that their release can’t be any harm to the society or danger to the legal procedures.
Read more & sign online petition

40 eminent poets write open letter demanding poet Varavara Rao’s release

40 eminent poets write open letter demanding poet Varavara Rao’s release

Asiaville / by Asiaville Desk

As the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic looms large and prisons are potentially becoming dangerous hotspots of contagion, 40 eminent poets from across India have penned an open letter to the Prime Minister of India seeking urgent release of celebrated octogenarian Telugu poet Varavara Rao.
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Dalit leaders, Amnesty condemn SC order on arrests of Teltumbde, Navlakha

Dalit leaders, Amnesty condemn SC order on arrests of Teltumbde, Navlakha

Scroll.in / by Scroll Staff

Meanwhile, the petitioners in the case wrote an open letter to the CJI, alleging that the prosecution had produced no evidence even after 18 months.
Several Dalit leaders, including MPs and MLAs, issued a statement on Monday calling the imminent arrest of activist Anand Teltumbde in the Bhima Koregaon case a “national shame”.
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As Anand Teltumbde is about to go to jail, an editor pays tribute

As Anand Teltumbde is about to go to jail, an editor pays tribute

The Wire / by S Anand

S Anand, Teltumbde’s publisher at Navayana, recounts his uncompromising clarity and forthrightness.
“Every thinking Indian is a potential ‘urban Maoist’; it is just the mercy of the police that such Indians are not all under arrest.” Anand Teltumbde, 30 June 2018, in ‘Economic and Political Weekly.’
To expect such small mercies – because you studied or taught at IITs and IIMs, because you have a PhD in cybernetics, because you chair Big Data Analytics at a premier management institute, and because you are married to Babasaheb Ambedkar’s granddaughter – is clearly folly.
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‘Especially Inhuman’: Romila Thapar, Others Write to CJI Bobde On Teltumbde, Navlakha

‘Especially Inhuman’: Romila Thapar, Others Write to CJI Bobde On Teltumbde, Navlakha

The Wire / by The Wire Staff

‘Like all fair-minded citizens, we are shocked that the prosecution has not been held accountable to the spirit of the law.’
New Delhi: As the Supreme Court’s one-week period to surrender comes to an end on April 14, the arrest of social activists and intellectuals Anand Teltumbde and Gautam Navlakha in the Elgar Parishad case is now inevitable. The two, if arrested, will join the nine other human rights activists and lawyers languishing in Maharashtra’s jails for close to two years.
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SC Decision To Send Gautam Navlakha And Anand Teltumbde To Jail Is Cruel And Disappointing

SC Decision To Send Gautam Navlakha And Anand Teltumbde To Jail Is Cruel And Disappointing

By Amnesty International

Amid the spread of COVID-19, the Supreme Court of India’s order directing the arrest and imprisonment of two human rights defenders, Anand Teltumbde and Gautam Navlakha within a week, is disappointing. The order is also at odds with the court’s previous ruling where it directed the states to decongest the country’s overcrowded prisons to prevent the spread of the pandemic, thereby posing a risk to the health of the two activists, said Amnesty International India today.
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Campaign by AI: Demand The Release Of The Bhima Koregaon 9 Now!


In 2018, as part of a massive crackdown on human rights defenders in India, nine prominent activists– Sudha Bharadwaj, Shoma Sen, Surendra Gadling, Mahesh Raut, Arun Ferreira, Sudhir Dhawale, Rona Wilson, Vernon Gonsalves and Varavara Rao were arrested by the Pune Police.
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Video: Bhima Koregaon 9: Heroes Who Fight For Your Rights

en | 6:18 min | 2019
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Condemn the SC’s denial of relief & stand in solidarity with all voices for peoples’ rights!

Condemn the SC’s denial of relief & stand in solidarity with all voices for peoples’ rights!

CASR posters, 2018

By Campaign Against State Repression (CASR)

The Campaign Against State Repression (CASR) calls on all democratic organisations and individuals to come together and condemn the denial of relief for Prof. Anand Teltumbde and Gautam Navlakha, stand in solidarity with all such voices of democracy and demand the immediate release of all political prisoners. Our unity at this time of crisis is all the more urgent and necessary for our silence in the time of injustice is bound to render us voiceless in the days to come. Let us unite and demand:
1. Immediate reprieve from arrest of Prof. Anand Teltumbde and Gautam Navlakha.
2. Immediate release of all political prisoners lodged in jails all over the country, particularly in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.
3. Immediate release of all under-trial prisoners and persons convicted on minor charges to decongest prisons.
4. Action (with restraint in light of COVID-19) against the perpetrators of violence in the Bhima Koregaon case including Sambhaji Bhide and Milind Ekbote.
5. Repeal of all draconian laws like UAPA, NSA and PSA, among others.
Read full statement