IAMC Weekly News Digest, 22nd January 2021

January 22, 2021

IAMC Weekly News Digest, 22nd January 2021

India does not protect human rights defenders properly, says UN representative

United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders Mary Lawlor on Friday criticised India’s handling of rights activists, reported The Indian Express. Lawlor was speaking at an online event marking the 100 days of imprisonment of activist Stan Swamy. “India is a state which doesn’t properly protect human rights defenders,” Lawlor said. “I am appalled by the treatment of human rights defenders such as Father Stan Swamy who embodies solidarity.” Lawlor said that she had written to the Indian government raising concerns about Swamy’s arrest, but she was yet to get a reply…. Earlier this month, Lawlor had tweeted a copy of the letter, where she referred to Swamy’s arrest as an “arbitrary detention”, pointing out that he has been working to protect the rights of Adivasis and Dalits since the 1970s.

3 BJP Activists Arrested for Raising ‘goli Maro…’ Slogan in Bengal

Three BJP activists including its Hooghly district youth wing chief Suresh Sahu have been arrested for allegedly raising ‘goli maro…’ (shoot the traitors) slogan at a roadshow of party leader Suvendu Adhikari here, police said on Thursday. Some BJP activists had allegedly raised the slogan at a party program in West Bengal’s Hooghly district on Wednesday, following which district police registered a suo motu case and arrested them late at night, an officer said. The three arrested persons will be produced at a court during the day, he said. The activists, who were trailing the truck carrying Adhikari along with Hooghly MP Locket Chatterjee and Rajya Sabha member Swapan Dasgupta, had allegedly raised the slogan holding BJP flags and the Tricolour in Rathtala area here….

Had good police support because of Modi: Babu Bajrangi in Ashish Khetan’s Undercover – By Ashish Khetan

….I asked Bajrangi, “Narendrabhai, that day, did Narendrabhai extend support on the day Naroda Patiya happened?” “Usne to sab Ram nam kar diya na yaar, nahi to kiski taqat thi, sab uska hi hath hai bhai, nahi to police ko instruction dewe to gad phad dewe police.” (It was his hand which was behind this, otherwise if he had instructed the police, the police would have torn the rioters apart.) After the killing stopped, Bajrangi told me, he was asked by the police to leave the area, and even the state’s home minister told him to go into hiding…. While he was in hiding, Bajrangi claimed, he spoke with Modi more than a couple of times on the phone…. Then Bajrangi told us again that, without Modi’s consent, the slaughter at Naroda Patiya, and by extension elsewhere, would not have been possible.

Announcement

Leading Indian American Organizations, Activists Urge Indian Supreme Court to Give Bail to Sanjiv Bhatt

News

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India does not protect human rights defenders properly, says UN representative

3 BJP Activists Arrested for Raising ‘goli Maro…’ Slogan in Bengal

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