UAPA

Delhi LG approves prosecution of Arundhati Roy under UAPA https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/delhi-lg-gives-prosecution-sanction-against-arundhati-roy-under-uapa-101718371339683-amp.html  Jun 14, 2024  Delhi lieutenant governor Vinai Kumar Saxena on Friday granted sanction to prosecute author Arundhati Roy under stringent Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) for her alleged 'provocative' speech at an event in 2010, Also .former Central University of Kashmir professor Sheikh Showkat Hussain under section 196 of CrPC. ...Besides Roy and Sheikh Showkat Hussain, the others who made speeches included late Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, SAR Geelani (anchor of the Conference and prime accused in the Parliament attack case) and Varavara Rao.

The complainant Sushil Pandit, an activist from Kashmir, had filed a complaint under Section 156(3) of CrPC before the Metropolitan Magistrate Court, New Delhi, who disposed of the complaint on November 27, 2010 with the directions to register an FIR.It was alleged that Geelani and Arundhati Roy strongly propagated that Kashmir was never part of India  

अरुंधति रॉय पर UAPA, शुरू हो गया पुराना खेल https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSkIQFRzl-o Jun 15, 2024
अरुंधति रॉय पर चौदह साल पुराने मामले में UAPA की धारा के तहत केस चलेगा। इतने साल से ध्यान में नहीं आया, लगता है कि अपनी हार से बौखलाई सरकार अब फिर से उन्हीं तरीकों पर आ गई है। NDA के सहयोग से सरकार बनने के बाद भी यह NDA नहीं, मोदी सरकार है, अगर यही बताना था तो NEET के मामले में पारदर्शी होना था न कि लेखकों और पत्रकारों को जेल का रास्ता दिखा कर डराने की चाल चलनी चाहिए थी।

Meet 10 ‘political prisoners’ of the Narendra Modi regime in jail without trial https://www.telegraphindia.com/gallery/meet-10-political-prisoners-of-the-narendra-modi-regime-in-jail-without-trial-photogallery/cid/2026467 

the National Crime Records Bureau, in 2022, show that the number of undertrial inmates numbered 4,34,302 or 75.8 per cent of total prisoners.

Between 2016 and 2020, 24,134 individuals have been charged with the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) alone, only 386 of whom have reportedly been acquitted.

1. Umar Khalid, for allegedly inciting people through his speeches before the Delhi riots that occurred in February 2020

2. Surendra Gadling, a lawyer and Dalit rights activist from Nagpur

3. Rona Wilson, an activist and public relations secretary of the Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners,accused of inciting caste-based violence through speeches, and having Maoist connections. 

4. Jyoti Jagtap, a Dalit and Adivasi rights activist and member of the Kabir Kala Manch cultural group, 

5. Hany Babu, a professor of linguistics at Delhi University,, facing allegations of having links with Maoist organisations and inciting caste-based violence.

6. Sagar Gorkhe,e has been detained under various sections of the IPC and the UAPA, facing allegations of having links with Maoist organisations

7. Mahesh Raut, a land rights activist and former Prime Minister’s Rural Development Fellow, for alleged links with Maoist organisations and inciting caste-based violence. 

8.  Ramesh Gaichor, a Dalit rights activist and yet another member of the Kabir Kala Manch cultural group,

9. Aasif Sultan, a Kashmiri journalist and former editor of the ‘Kashmir Narrator magazine’,  charges including "complicity" and "waging war against the state" in Kashmir.

10. Khurram Parvez, a Kashmiri human rights activist and chairperson of the Asian Federation Against is accused of funding terrorism and conspiring against the state,

Cooment in WA: A Guess Gulfisha, jailed in connection with CAA, was not found to be worth mentioning

SEVEN YEARS after his incarceration and TWO YEARS after actually having been granted bail which was rendered meaningless (after the National Investigation Authority did its perverse number on it), the Supreme Court grants bail to Mahesh Raut for a mere six weeks on medical grounds.

He was 31 when he was arrested, the youngest accused in the Bhima Koregaon case. He is now 38. Almost an entire third decade of his life wiped out for crimes that reside entirely in the state's ghastly imagination. 

The reason I underline the years in every post I make on our activists is because it's important to understand and process these years from the vantage point of our own lives. 

Think about where you were and what you were doing seven years ago and the losses and gains you have made in life from thereon. Those are the years Mahesh Raut, Umar Khalid, Jyoti Jagtap, Sharjeel Imam, Surendra Gadling, Gulfisha Fatima and so many others have spent looking at the four walls of their cells. Time didn't stop for them, but it's like a big hole popped up where there was supposed to be life in all its shades. Friends, opportunities, laughter, heartbreak, fulfilment, happy occasions, sad moments, the very privilege of existing; all of it snuffed out because they branded you with a label that you couldn't defend yourself against, regardless of your innocence.

And now, Mahesh has been laid low by Rheumatoid Arthritis. All of 38 and struck by an ailment that normally creeps up on people in their middle ages.

Could this have been triggered by his unforgiving stint in the prison? We don't know that for sure.

But here's what we do know.

RA is primarily an autoimmune disease influenced and triggered by (amongst other factors such as genetic and hormonal) "stress" itself. Psychological stress can activate the immune system's inflammatory response, which plays a key role in RA's progression and the severity of its symptoms. Even bare minimum research on the subject will tell you that "...hostile and highly stressful environment in prisons may contribute to more frequent or severe flare-ups of RA symptoms among those already predisposed or diagnosed with the condition."

In sum, the systemic cruelty didn't just rob Mahesh of his best years it may even have potentially had a hand in inducing a condition that comes with lifelong complications.

But then why is it surprising? 

We must remember after all that we lost Father Stan Swamy and Prof GN Saibaba under equally hostile conditions (the latter was marginally lucky to breathe the sweet air of freedom just months before his passing). 

The six weeks Mahesh Raut will get to spend in the company of his friends and family to treat his arthritis would make his return to prison way more painful eventually. But who could argue with the fact that the real disease here is not in his body, but in the system that made him sick in the first place.

'The Incarcerations ' pulls back the curtain on Indian democracy to tell the remarkable and chilling story of the Bhima Koregaon case, in wgich sixteen human rights defenders professors, lawyers, journalists, poets- have been imprisoned, without credible evidence and without trial, as Maoist terrorists. ( from blurb)

The Incarcerations - Bhima Koregaon and the Search for Democracy in India by Alpa Shah, 2024

This book is available at CED 

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