India Muzzles Free Speech By Arresting Citizens Critical Of Judges, Seeks Indian Americans’ Arrest, Too
India’s crackdown on free speech continues to escalate under the authoritarian Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. An Indian federal agency has arrested eleven people on criminal charges merely because they wrote social media posts criticizing some judges. Not only that.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has even moved the Interpol seeking the arrest of two Indian Americans on a similar charge. The two Indian Americans, C. Prabhakar Reddy and Mani Annapureddy, live in the US.
The CBI found their locations by getting a Blue Notice issued against them through the Interpol. All the 11 arrested in India are in jail. Shockingly, the arrests have followed directions from India’s Supreme Court which recently criticized the federal government for inaction in this case.
Persecuted Muslim Doctor Who Saved Children’s Lives Sacked Despite Court Order
The Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC) condemns the government in India’s Uttar Pradesh state for its decision to terminate the services of Dr. Kafeel Khan, a Muslim doctor who had saved the lives of hundreds of children by bringing oxygen cylinders to a government hospital when official supplies ran out in 2017.
It was revealed on November 11 that Dr. Khan had been sacked from the BRD Medical College and Hospital in Gorakhpur city. This vicious act reflects nothing but vendetta and Islamophobia, as the state’s High Court had earlier exonerated Dr. Khan of the government’s false charges that he had been responsible for the deaths of 70 children at that hospital.
The government has asserted that same false claim in sacking him. Uttar Pradesh police had arrested Dr. Khan and he spent months in prison before he was bailed by the court, which ruled in 2019 that the allegation against him was untrue.
Journalist, Lawyers Booked Under Draconian Law Move India’s Supreme Court
Two lawyers and a journalist who have been criminally charged under a draconian anti-democratic law have moved India’s Supreme Court asking that the charges against them be quashed. They have also asked the court to rule on the “unconstitutionality” of certain provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, under which they have been charged.
The petition from lawyers Ansarul Haq Ansari and Mukesh and journalist Shyam Meera Singh has been filed under Article 32 of the Constitution which authorizes citizens to move India’s highest court to seek enforcement of their fundamental rights of habeas corpus.
The lawyers and journalists have been charged under by the police in Tripura state because they tweeted about the anti-Muslims from Hindu extremists aligned to Prime Minister Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its ideological parent, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a paramilitary organization that wants to terminate India’s pluralist constitution and convert India into a theocratic Hindu nation with drastically curtailed rights for India’s Muslims and Christian minorities. The Tripura police continues to deny that any anti-Muslim violence took place in recent weeks in Tripura despite abundant evidence of arson, attacks and vandalims at mosques, as well as homes and offices of Muslims.
