(Asian Independent)
Dear Friends,
I write as part of an international coalition of individuals and groups representing academics, students, lawyers, journalists, social activists, and concerned citizens in countries such the UK, Germany, France Switzerland and the Netherlands. The coalition is not a formal organisation but committed to building up a consistent campaign across Europe.
We consider the situation in India serious. The Indian state’s misuse of power, extreme intolerance to any form of dissent, and the practice of targeted terror and imprisoning vast numbers of people
as under-trials in overcrowded prisons have been building up since decades but now have reached an unprecedented height. In recent years, voices have been raised against, for example, arrests of several intellectuals in the
Bhima Koregaon (BK-16) case, the constitutional amendment regarding Kashmir, the so-called Citizenship Amendment Act, the Delhi pogrom targeting Muslims, and the unconstitutionally passed farm laws, police brutality and custodial violence, rising caste atrocities, and so on. But politicians and world leaders remained silent.
We now know about the more recent use of sophisticated malware to hack computers and implant false documents to implicate social and human rights activists as “urban naxales” and “terrorists”, and the use of Pegasus software to spy on journalists, human rights activists, politicians and others in India (as in several European countries) In all this, we are deeply saddened by the death of Stan Swamy, an 84-year old Jesuit priest and social activist charged falsely in the Bhima Koregaon case. This tragedy is a mere fraction of the tip of an iceberg. We need to protest across the world – India’s diminishing freedoms are a global concern.
Many diasporic and international human rights groups have been raising voices across the globe, sometimes alone, sometimes together. We believe these efforts now must also coalesce as much as possible so the issue becomes impossible to ignore.
We start with a silent vigil on 15 August, India’s Independence Day so we can be loud on Friday, 10 December (Human Rights Day). Please see the attached flyer for details.
In solidarity,
Lekh
