Statement in solidarity with civil liberties activists in India

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
