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UAPA: Anti-terror law now terrorises citizens https://www.deccanherald.com/specials/insight/uapa-anti-terror-law-now-terrorises-citizens-1007268.html     Shemin Joy, DHNS, Jul 11 2021 Official statistics on UAPA tells the whole story — police managed just a 29% conviction rate in 2019 and 95% of cases that reached courts in that year are still pending. 

Despite this poor track record, an increasing number of cases are being registered each year — 901 in 2017, 1,182 in 2018 and 1,226 in 2019. Of the 2,361 cases that went to trial in 2019, only 113 saw completion of which just 33 cases saw conviction...

Opposing undemocratic policies not anti-national, says Akhil Gogoi  : https://www.deccanherald.com/national/dh-exclusive-opposing-undemocratic-policies-not-anti-national-says-akhil-gogoi-1005726.html  

There must be a united opposition across India against the draconian UAPA. Opposition parties must promise to do away with misuse of this draconian law. Opposing the government’s anti-people policies cannot be anti-national and an act of Maoists. We must also strengthen legal and political debate across India against the misuse of this Act. I hope my acquittal will be an inspiration in this regard.

Stan Swamy’s custodial death ends charade of ‘Gandhi in London, Godse in Gwalior’ Seema Chishti in The Long Cable  https://www.theindiacable.com/p/stan-swamy-case-saw-rule-by-law-not

In Father Stan’s case, the manner in which he has been accused and incarcerated leads to a single point – the intentions of the political project towards independent institutions, the law and minorities.

The National Investigation Agency was brought in, the use of the notorious UAPA to lawfully but unconstitutionally name individuals as terrorists and violate their right to life and liberty..use the law to attack and break down the rule of law.

 institutions, especially the judiciary and the media, failed to stand up.

It is no coincidence that Father Stan Swamy is a Jesuit Priest in central India, where the Sangh Parivar has targeted missionaries

Stan Swamy: A Messiah or Maoist? The Truth of Bhima Koregaon | Elgar Parishad | BK 16 Bhima Koregaon Case: Jul  8 2012 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0SdQ0TOfM4 

Bhima Koregaon Case: Trial Is the Intent of Draconian UAPA Law https://thewire.in/rights/bhima-koregaon-case-trying-without-a-trial-is-the-intent-of-draconian-uapa-law Rajshree Chandra 

Enacted in 1967, UAPA initially gave powers to the Union government to impose all-India bans on unlawful associations...The case against civil liberties and constitutional remedies got a draconian push by the Supreme Court’s Watali judgement (2019), which made bail a virtual impossibility for those charged under the UAPA.  ... this judgment is a reversal of the Supreme Court’s own ruling in the Balchand case (1978) that made “bail the rule and jail the exception”, balancing the values of individual liberty and exigencies of security. ..

In one of the earliest pleas in the Bhima Koregaon arrests, five of the accused had petitioned the Supreme Court in August 2018. The petitioners’ plea was only for a probe by a special investigation team (SIT), given the glaring lapses and bizarre conclusions in the rather tendentious findings of the Mumbai police.

In one instance, the inflammatory speech referred to in the FIR was actually a Marathi translation of verses from the German play The Good Persons of Szechwan by Betrolt Brecht.

In another, despite the Regional Forensic Science Laboratory (Pune) raising many red flags on the veracity of “conspiracy letters”, they were selectively flashed by ADG of Maharashtra Police at a press briefing to suggest that the arrested activists were involved in a plot to assassinate the prime minister. All this was evidence placed before the court. The Supreme Court, however in its wisdom, dismissed the plea for SIT.

The purpose of this arbitrary “trial-without-a-trial” is no longer justice, where the guilty are punished and the innocent are set free. It is to convert the law into a tool of sustained suppression of citizens who are thinking, questioning and a little more dissenting that the state is willing to tolerate. “Trial by process” is the political and organisational logic of the UAPA.