Statement in solidarity with civil liberties activists in India

Justin Podur
Sep 4, 2018 · 3 min read
solidarity with arrested activists

This message is to express solidarity with the civil liberties activists arrested by police in different parts of India on August 27.

These activists — Sudha Bharadwaj, Varavara Rao, Vernon Gonsalves, Arun Ferreira, and Gautam Navlakha — are long-standing, prominent activists for the rights and dignity of oppressed people in India. As well, Sudha Bharadwaj is a lawyer, defending not only workers’ and Indigenous peoples’ rights, but also India’s constitution; Varavara Rao is a poet; Arun Ferreira is a cartoonist; Gautam Navlakha is an author. What they share is not that they are “urban naxals”, as they have been accused of, but instead that they have worked with determination to highlight and remedy the violations of rights against Indigenous people, especially in Chhattisgarh.

As retired professor Badri Raina suggested in an article the day after the arrests: “The grave fault of the human rights activists who have just been arrested is that they share knowledge of the provisions of the constitution of India with Indian citizens who, despite seven decades of practicing democracy, have remained disenfranchised from the promises of constitutional democracy.”

From house arrest, Sudha Bharadwaj has noted in a hand-written letter that evidence presented by police against her has been entirely fabricated, calling it a “mixture of innocuous and publicly available facts and baseless fabrication”.

The use of fabricated evidence to persecute civil rights advocates has no place in a democratic political process where the rule of law is valued. Tragically, such “concocted” cases have a long history of being deployed against Indigenous people and their advocates, including in India. Many such cases have been brought to light by the activists currently under arrest. A truly disturbing pattern is emerging of advocates being arrested on fabricated charges while they campaign on behalf of others, as author Arundhati Roy pointed out in a press conference:

“Professor Saibaba, who campaigned relentlessly against the paramilitary operations in Bastar stood up for Binayak Sen. When they arrested Saibaba, Rona Wilson, stood up for him. Surendra Gadling was Saibaba’s lawyer. When they arrested Rona Wilson and Surendra Gadling, Sudha Bharadwaj, Gautam Navlakha and the others stood up for them… and so it goes. The vulnerable are being cordoned off and silenced. The vociferous are being incarcerated.”

The persecutions must stop. These defenders of democratic rights and civil liberties must be freed and allowed to continue their advocacy.

Note: Affiliations are for identification purposes only. To sign on, please contact Justin Podur.

Signed,

Greb Albo, Professor, Department of Politics, York University

Vilma Almendra, Pueblos en Camino, Colombia

Hugo Blanco, Lucha Indigena, Peru

S.L. Bondarchuk, Director, Edmonton Small Press Association

CRY -Corporación Regional Yareguíes- desde Barrancabermeja, Magdalena Medio en Colombia

Derly Constanza Cuetia Dagua del Pueblo Nasa, Cauca, Colombia

Dan Freeman-Maloy, postdoctoral fellow, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)

GEAM -Grupo de Estudios Extractivos y Ambientales del Magdalena Medio

John Gibler, writer, Mexico City

John Gilberts, Settlers In Support of Indigenous Sovereignty (SISIS), Toronto

Sam Gindin, retired Assistant to the President, Canadian Auto Workers — now UNIFOR, Toronto, Canada

María Vanda Ianowski, Universidad Nacional del Comahue, Viedma, provincia de Río Negro, Argentina

Ilan Kapoor, York University, Toronto, C

Stefan Kipfer, York University, Toronto, Canada

Mary-Jo Nadeau, researcher and writer, Toronto, Canada

Rene Olvera Salinas, profesor de la Universidad Pedagógica Nacional y Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro, México

Cynthia Peters, World Education, Boston, MA, USA

Justin Podur, York University, Toronto, Canada

Manuel Rozental, Pueblos en Camino, Colombia

Sardar Saadi, PhD Candidate, University of Toronto, Canada

Rosa Sarabia, Professor, University of Toronto, Canada

Stephen R. Shalom, William Paterson University, Wayne, NJ, USA

Greg Shupak, University of Guelph-Humber, Toronto, Canada

Kevin Skerrett, Research Officer, Canadian Union of Public Employees, Ottawa

Melanie Spence, Registered Nurse, Toronto

Susan Spronk, University of Ottawa, Canada

Professor David Swartz (ret), Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada

Dr. Ben Thomson, Queen’s University, Kingston Ontario Canada

Comunidad Indígena de San Francisco Xochicuautla

Justin Podur
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