'An FIR was lodged here on Thursday against nearly 50 celebrities, including Ramchandra Guha, Mani Ratnam and Aparna Sen, who had written an open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi raising concern over the growing incidents of mob lynching, police said... He said nearly 50 signatories of the letter were named as accused in his petition in which they allegedly “tarnished the image of the country and undermined the impressive performance of the Prime Minister” besides “supporting secessionist tendencies”...
'During the recent parliamentary debate on the National Investigation Agency (Amendment) Bill 2019, Union Home Minister Amit Shah claimed that the notorious Prevention of Terrorism Act had been repealed in 2004 not because it had been misused but to safeguard vote bank politics. This, despite the fact that the misuse of POTA is well established and its repeal in 2004 was welcomed as a significant step by India towards recognising that counter-terrorism cannot justify the violation of civil liberties and rights of citizens.
'Lingaraj Azad, activist and adviser to Niyamgiri Suraksha Samiti, a tribal outfit opposed to mining in Niyamgiri in Odisha was arrested by the police in Kalahandi on Wednesday, March 6. The Hindu reported that Azad’s arrest, who is also the national vice president of the Samajwadi Jan Parishad and national convener of the National Alliance of People’s Movements, was confirmed by Kalahandi Superintendent of Police Battula Gangadhar.
'In the wake of Dalit scholar Anand Teltumbde’s illegal arrest by Pune police and his subsequent release, the five petitioners who had approached the Supreme Court against the arrest of the civil rights activists, have called the development a “mockery of constitutional guarantees, of due process and of democracy”. Teltumbde, who was granted relief from arrest until February 11 by the apex court was regardless arrested on Saturday after a Pune court refused to grant him anticipatory bail in a case related to the Bhima Koregaon violence.
'The Delhi police on Monday filed its chargesheet against former Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU) president Kanhaiya Kumar and others in a sedition case lodged in 2016... The Delhi police also charged former students – Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya – for allegedly using ‘anti-India’ slogans during an event organised on the JNU campus on February 9, 2016, on the anniversary of the hanging of Afzal Guru. Former JNUSU vice-president Shehla Rashid has also been named, but not charged...
Following is the final statement with the signatures as they were when it was closed for purposes of releasing to the media and sent to us by the initiators of the campaign.
The conviction of Prof. G.N. Saibaba by the Gadchiroli District Court in Maharashtra on 7th March 2017 has revived questions around the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (1967), and how it has progressively eroded Article 19 of the Indian Constitution. This 8 minute illustrated video documents the law in its 50th year, its contemporary application and raises questions about its constitutional validity.
'The obviously edited video, shown on TV news as well as spreading over social media, actually has Kanhaiya asking to end social ills such as caste and hunger – not any sort of political secessionism... Wednesday morning had the news channel NewsX and India News run a video which they claimed “exposed” Kanhaiya Kumar, president of the Jawaharlal Nehru student’s union, now in jail charged with sedition. “Kanhaiya’s ‘sedition’ exposed on tape,” ran the blazing headline on NewsX.
'News reports are indicating that an FIR has been registered with respect to a public meeting organized on the JNU campus on the evening of 9th February. These reports claim that the meeting was about the hanging of Afzal Guru, and it is alleged that during its course, some people raised incendiary slogans. According to reports, the FIR has been registered under Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code (sedition), and the Police have already arrested one person.
'On Tuesday, the Supreme Court dismissed a petition filed by Sanjiv Bhatt, the former Indian Police Service officer from Gujarat, asking for two police cases against him to be transferred out of Gujarat and investigated by an independent agency. Bhatt said he feared the state was trying to falsely implicate him since he had given testimony against Narendra Modi, then chief minister of Gujarat. One of those two cases pertained to a complaint filed by Tushar Mehta, then Additional Advocate General of Gujarat, alleging that Bhatt had hacked into his email account.
