Release all 15 Bhima Koragaon case co-accused pending trial: UNHR chief
All 15 co-accused in the Bhima Koregaon case should be released pending trial, said the United Nations Human Rights chief Michelle Bachelet on Tuesday, as she expressed concern over the death of 84-year-old Jesuit priest and tribal activist Stan Swamy in custody.
The statement from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), which follows similar concerns from the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders and the European Union (E.U.) Human Rights Chief on Monday, said Ms. Bachelet was ‘disturbed’ and ‘saddened’ by the news of Swamy’s death, and called on the Indian government “to ensure that no one is detained for exercising their fundamental rights to freedom of expression, of peaceful assembly and of association”.
“High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet and the U.N.’s independent experts have repeatedly raised the cases of Father Stan and 15 other human rights defenders associated with the same events with the government of India over the past three years and urged their release from pre-trial detention,” said the statement issued by the OHCHR spokesperson.
In written responses to queries from The Hindu, OHCHR spokesperson Liz Throssel said Ms. Bachelet had raised the cases both privately and publicly on “numerous occasions” including in a statement on “shrinking of civic space in India” last November. The U.N. Special Rapporteurs have also raised the issue of human rights defenders in a couple of communications to the Indian government, and are expected to release another update on the issue next month.
“The High Commissioner has also raised concerns over the use of the UAPA in relation to human rights defenders, a law Father Stan was challenging before Indian courts days before he died,” the rights agency said, making a particular mention of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), that allows authorities to detain suspects without charging them, and allows courts to hold them without bail.
Swamy had been arrested in October 2020 under the UAPA by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) and was held along with several others for alleged involvement in violence at a rally in 2018 in Bhima Koregaon as well as for links with Maoist groups, which he denied. Last Saturday, Swamy, who was also fighting for bail and for amenities in court, had challenged the constitutional validity of Section 43D(5) of the UAPA over its ‘illusory’ bail provisions.
Several international human rights agencies have expressed concern over the custodial death of Swamy and his treatment at the Taloja Jail, where he was kept despite suffering from the debilitating Parkinson’s disease, and was shifted to hospital only on May 29 this year. His interim bail hearing was in progress in the Bombay High Court on Monday when news of his death was announced.
https://www.thehindu.com/news/natio...-pending-trial-unhr-chief/article35173399.ece
Two Men Have Been in Jail for 45 Days for Saying Cow Poop and Piss Can’t Cure COVID
Their Facebook posts said cow faeces and urine are not the cure, “science and common sense is.”
On May 13, police forcefully took a journalist and an activist from their homes and threw them in prison. They’ve been in jail since. Their crime? Facebook posts that criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party for recommending cow dung and piss as cures for COVID-19.
In India’s Manipur state – a sparsely populated region about the size of New Jersey – police came at night to arrest political activist Erendro Leichombam. “It was traumatic for my parents,” Leichombam’s brother Sikendro told VICE World News. “The cops pushed my mother while making the arrest.”
Some three miles away, police barged into the home of journalist Kishorechandra Wangkhem to arrest him, too. They assaulted him in front of his three young children, his wife said. “My three-year-old daughter pooped in her pyjamas and started crying as my seven-year-old tried to calm her,” Wangkhem’s wife Ranjita Elangbam told VICE World News. Their third child is nine months old.
This time, they were arrested under India’s draconian National Security Act (NSA), an old colonial law that gives the Indian state powers to arrest and detain suspects for up to 12 months even without a formal charge or trial. Chongtham Victor, their lawyer, told VICE World News that they’re challenging the arrests on grounds of constitutional rights to free speech, and added that it was complaints filed by BJP members with the police that landed the two men in jail.
One complaint alleged that the Facebook posts “deliberately and wilfully insulted and outraged religious feelings and sentiments” of BJP workers and family members of the deceased.
Leichombam's Facebook post read, “The cure for Corona is not cow dung & cow urine. The cure is science & common sense.” Wanghem’s post stated that cow dung and urine don’t work as cures for COVID-19.
Cows are sacred in Hinduism, and products made from their feces and urine are often touted as antidotes to diseases, including COVID-19. In the last decade, the BJP has passed laws based on the belief in the holy status of cows.
These laws protect cattle from being eaten or sold, and uphold the belief in the animal’s divine powers. The government even set up a National Cow Commission for the purpose. At least 20 states have banned beef consumption, or regulate the sale of cows.
Since Modi came to power, Hindu nationalist mobs have killed dozens in the name of protecting cows. The victims were usually Muslims or other minorities, and the killers often got away with their crimes.
Leichombam’s family believes these arrests show the party is willing to go after anyone who contradicts them.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/dyv4vq/arrest-cow-poop-piss-covid-hindu-nationalism-modi-india
India ka naam badh raha hai duniya mein
All 15 co-accused in the Bhima Koregaon case should be released pending trial, said the United Nations Human Rights chief Michelle Bachelet on Tuesday, as she expressed concern over the death of 84-year-old Jesuit priest and tribal activist Stan Swamy in custody.
The statement from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), which follows similar concerns from the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders and the European Union (E.U.) Human Rights Chief on Monday, said Ms. Bachelet was ‘disturbed’ and ‘saddened’ by the news of Swamy’s death, and called on the Indian government “to ensure that no one is detained for exercising their fundamental rights to freedom of expression, of peaceful assembly and of association”.
“High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet and the U.N.’s independent experts have repeatedly raised the cases of Father Stan and 15 other human rights defenders associated with the same events with the government of India over the past three years and urged their release from pre-trial detention,” said the statement issued by the OHCHR spokesperson.
In written responses to queries from The Hindu, OHCHR spokesperson Liz Throssel said Ms. Bachelet had raised the cases both privately and publicly on “numerous occasions” including in a statement on “shrinking of civic space in India” last November. The U.N. Special Rapporteurs have also raised the issue of human rights defenders in a couple of communications to the Indian government, and are expected to release another update on the issue next month.
“The High Commissioner has also raised concerns over the use of the UAPA in relation to human rights defenders, a law Father Stan was challenging before Indian courts days before he died,” the rights agency said, making a particular mention of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), that allows authorities to detain suspects without charging them, and allows courts to hold them without bail.
Swamy had been arrested in October 2020 under the UAPA by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) and was held along with several others for alleged involvement in violence at a rally in 2018 in Bhima Koregaon as well as for links with Maoist groups, which he denied. Last Saturday, Swamy, who was also fighting for bail and for amenities in court, had challenged the constitutional validity of Section 43D(5) of the UAPA over its ‘illusory’ bail provisions.
Several international human rights agencies have expressed concern over the custodial death of Swamy and his treatment at the Taloja Jail, where he was kept despite suffering from the debilitating Parkinson’s disease, and was shifted to hospital only on May 29 this year. His interim bail hearing was in progress in the Bombay High Court on Monday when news of his death was announced.
https://www.thehindu.com/news/natio...-pending-trial-unhr-chief/article35173399.ece
Two Men Have Been in Jail for 45 Days for Saying Cow Poop and Piss Can’t Cure COVID
Their Facebook posts said cow faeces and urine are not the cure, “science and common sense is.”
On May 13, police forcefully took a journalist and an activist from their homes and threw them in prison. They’ve been in jail since. Their crime? Facebook posts that criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party for recommending cow dung and piss as cures for COVID-19.
In India’s Manipur state – a sparsely populated region about the size of New Jersey – police came at night to arrest political activist Erendro Leichombam. “It was traumatic for my parents,” Leichombam’s brother Sikendro told VICE World News. “The cops pushed my mother while making the arrest.”
Some three miles away, police barged into the home of journalist Kishorechandra Wangkhem to arrest him, too. They assaulted him in front of his three young children, his wife said. “My three-year-old daughter pooped in her pyjamas and started crying as my seven-year-old tried to calm her,” Wangkhem’s wife Ranjita Elangbam told VICE World News. Their third child is nine months old.
This time, they were arrested under India’s draconian National Security Act (NSA), an old colonial law that gives the Indian state powers to arrest and detain suspects for up to 12 months even without a formal charge or trial. Chongtham Victor, their lawyer, told VICE World News that they’re challenging the arrests on grounds of constitutional rights to free speech, and added that it was complaints filed by BJP members with the police that landed the two men in jail.
One complaint alleged that the Facebook posts “deliberately and wilfully insulted and outraged religious feelings and sentiments” of BJP workers and family members of the deceased.
Leichombam's Facebook post read, “The cure for Corona is not cow dung & cow urine. The cure is science & common sense.” Wanghem’s post stated that cow dung and urine don’t work as cures for COVID-19.
Cows are sacred in Hinduism, and products made from their feces and urine are often touted as antidotes to diseases, including COVID-19. In the last decade, the BJP has passed laws based on the belief in the holy status of cows.
These laws protect cattle from being eaten or sold, and uphold the belief in the animal’s divine powers. The government even set up a National Cow Commission for the purpose. At least 20 states have banned beef consumption, or regulate the sale of cows.
Since Modi came to power, Hindu nationalist mobs have killed dozens in the name of protecting cows. The victims were usually Muslims or other minorities, and the killers often got away with their crimes.
Leichombam’s family believes these arrests show the party is willing to go after anyone who contradicts them.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/dyv4vq/arrest-cow-poop-piss-covid-hindu-nationalism-modi-india
India ka naam badh raha hai duniya mein
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