Pratap Bhanu Mehta: Delhi riots chargesheet invents conspiracy and enemy, as per script / Over 200 educationists, filmmakers and authors demand release of Umar Khalid

By Dilip -

Delhi’s Police’s investigation against students and activists in connection with the Delhi riots is pushing the Indian state into a long dark night of tyranny. The riots are a serious matter. All perpetrators must be credibly identified and subject to the law. But instead, we are witnessing a project designed to crush civil society. If our freedom is to be saved, we need to understand what is at stake in what is happening in Delhi. Normally, in a society constituted by the rule of law, we should let the investigation run its course before pronouncing judgment. 

But we are living in a world where the state, in partnership with the media, does not subscribe to this restraint. In case after case, it runs nightly media trials, destroying people’s lives and reputations. The state uses investigations, leaked evidence, chargesheets as pretexts for establishing narrative dominance and to intimidate. It is not interested in guilt or innocence. It is interested in demonstrating that it can destroy your life with impunity.

एक बात हमेशा ज़हन में सवाल खड़े करती है A question that stays with me... / Ravish Kumar's Speech at Berkeley (2019)

Avay Shukla: Acts Of God And Follies Of Man

Is all this too much to ask?

It can declare you a terrorist, it can declare you a drug lord, and it can charge you under UAPA. In the Delhi chargesheets, dozens and dozens of students and distinguished academics are facing exactly this prospect. “The law will take its own course”, the state wants to say. But, in the meanwhile, let us show you what we can do to you. …

https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/you-dare-not-speak-delhi-riots-anti-caa-protests-police-6609570/

Over 200 educationists, filmmakers and authors demand release of Umar Khalid

In a statement released on September 24, the signatories have called for an investigation into the "pre-meditated witch-hunt" and have said Khalid was falsely implicated by the Delhi Police, the Indian Express reported. "We stand in solidarity and outrage, with the brave young scholar and activist Umar Khalid… He is charged with sedition, conspiracy to murder, and under sections of India’s stringent anti-terror law, the UAPA," the signatories have said in the letter.

"This process of criminalizing all dissent has been underway for a few years and even under the COVID-19 pandemic, relentless political arrests under fabricated charges are punishing the innocent long before they are brought to trial," they wrote. The signatories include prominent personalities of national and international repute, such as writers Salman Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh, Arundhati Roy; filmmakers Mira Nair and Anand Patwardhan; historians Romila Thapar, Irfan Habib; linguist Noam Chomsky; and activists Medha Patkar and Aruna Roy. They said the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protests in India were "the largest most peaceful democratic rights movement in independent India"…

https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/india/amitav-ghosh-salman-rushdie-mira-nair-and-others-demand-release-of-umar-khalid-5881081.html

Colin Gonsalves: Refusal of bail to Sudha Bharadwaj is based on inadmissible evidence

Coomi Kapoor: Everyone who succumbs to authority is no less guilty

Samjhauta Express blast case verdict: ‘Who will answer for death of my five children?’

Shalini Langer: Give me Rhea’s fortitude any day // Tavleen Singh: Rhea and her family have been sacrificed at the altar of lynch mob journalism

Hannah Ellis-Petersen: Actor's death fuels media frenzy in India

Rhea Chakraborty on 'media trial' after Bollywood star's death. By Geeta Pandey

Salute the spirit of resistance to tyranny - 'We can only help ourselves': women in Belarus take protests into their own hands

Popular uprising against Thailand's God-like monarchy

Pratap Bhanu Mehta - Thoki Raj: Creating order by trampling on law is one of the elements of dityanath’s ideological success

Patrick Cockburn: Trump, Erdogan, Modi, Orban, Bolsonaro – populist nationalists have met their match in the coronavirus

Prem Shankar Jha: The Shadow of Haren Pandya’s Case Lies Long Over Justice Arun Mishra

Nikhila Henry - Ex CJI Gogoi's RS Nomination Calls All His Judgments Into Question, Says Legal Expert

‘This episode is going to haunt SC in years to come’: Justice AP Shah on CJI sexual harassment case

 Sabotage of Indian criminal justice continues unchecked: Aseemanand’s ‘disclosure’ missing from court

Apoorva Mandhani: Judge Loya's Confidants Died Mysterious Deaths

Death of Judge Loya: Government documents placed before Supreme Court raise more questions, deepen the mystery. By ATUL DEV

Press Statement by concerned citizens on the interrogation of Professor Apoorvanand by the Special Branch

Samar Halarnkar: Narendra Modi and the unsurprising politics of vendetta // Aatish Taseer: I am Indian. Why is the Government Sending Me Into Exile?

एक बात हमेशा ज़हन में सवाल खड़े करती है A question that stays with me... / Ravish Kumar's Speech at Berkeley (2019)

Avay Shukla: Acts Of God And Follies Of Man

Is all this too much to ask?

Samjhauta Express blast case verdict: ‘Who will answer for death of my five children?’

Jailed and Harassed Former IGP Darapuri, 76, Shares His Ordeal

Prem Shankar Jha: The Shadow of Haren Pandya’s Case Lies Long Over Justice Arun Mishra

Nikhila Henry - Ex CJI Gogoi's RS Nomination Calls All His Judgments Into Question, Says Legal Expert

‘This episode is going to haunt SC in years to come’: Justice AP Shah on CJI sexual harassment case


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