Association for Protection of Democratic Rights (APDR) rose to the very need of the hour by staging a protest meeting for release of political prisoners. Even if not such large numbers, an event of most qualitative significance in light of neo-fascism sharpening it’s fangs day by day. It was a stepping stone in dealing with the question of incarceration of[Read More...]
In India, there is a saying that ’56 like you have seen’. This saying is formed from historical events and the background of this saying is also formed from the historical battle of Bhima Koregaon When only 500 Mahar soldiers had crushed 28,000 Peshwa soldiers. To understand the historical significance of Bhima Koregaon, one must first understand the Peshwa. The[Read More...]
In spite of rain and cold weather, South Asian activists gathered outside the Indian Visa and Passport Application Center in Surrey on Friday, December 10 to raise their voices for political prisoners being incarcerated by the world’s so-called largest democracy. Organized by Radical Desi, the rally started with a moment of silence for 14 civilians killed by the Indian army[Read More...]
The PUCL welcomes the short order of the Supreme Court yesterday, 07th December, 2021, dismissing the SLP filed by the NIA which challenged the grant of statutory bail to Advocate Sudha Bharadwaj, a committed activist lawyer and member of PUCL. The PUCL sees this important order and the order of the Bombay High Court which was under challenge, as a[Read More...]
Gautam Navlakha, nearly 70, is one of the oldest of the Bhima Koregaon arrestees, who was shifted to the “Anda Circle” (high security) from the barracks on October 12, 2021. Additionally, his telephone calls to me and his lawyers, his lifeline to the outside world, have been discontinued on the pretext that physical mulaquats have resumed in jail. I, his[Read More...]
Currently incarcerated under trumped up charges in the world’s so called largest democracy, Sudha Bharadwaj is one of the dozens of scholars and activists locked up in the Indian jails. Bharadwaj, who turned 60 on November 1, is a lawyer who has been advocating for the rights of the poor and marginalized, especially Adivasis or the Indigenous peoples of India[Read More...]
On the 37th anniversary of the 1984 Sikh Genocide, South Asian activists gathered in Surrey to raise their voices for a jailed Indian scholar, who was behind documenting the tragedy and exposing those involved. Gautam Navlakha was arrested on trumped up charges in April 2020, and is currently lodged in jail near Mumbai. His only crime is daring to question[Read More...]
Sudha Bharadwaj marks her fourth birthday in prison today, November 1st, 2021, when she completes 60 years. She has been in jail along with the other BK-16 accused as undertrials, with the state neither commencing the trial nor releasing her on bail. Sudha’s life is a testament to a passionate concern to redressing injustice and redressing injustice is nothing, if[Read More...]
How a human rights activist could be a challenge to the jail authority? On what way could solitary confinement of undertrial prisoner help him/her to avail justice? From various press releases, letters and media reports, Ganatantrik Adhikar Surakhya Sangathan, Odisha (GASS) got information that the some of the human rights activists, arrested on Elgar Parishad – Bhima Koregaon case, have[Read More...]
The high handedness of the Taloja Central Jail administration was evident in the events leading to the death of the octogenarian Bhima Koregaon undertrail, Stan Swamy on July 5, 2021. Almost immediately, the remaining BK undertrials protested the arbitrary jail conditions imposed by the then Superintendent, Kaustabh Kurlekar by observing a one-day hunger strike. However, far from bringing such persecution[Read More...]
