Indian student leader accused of sedition 'beaten up by lawyers'
The Indian student union leader at the centre of a case that has triggered protests across universities and accusations that the government is trying to muzzle free speech says he has been beaten up outside court by lawyers.The Indian student union leader at the centre of a case that has triggered protests across universities and accusations that the government is trying to muzzle free speech says he has been beaten up outside court by lawyers.
In a repeat of chaotic scenes from Monday, Kanhaiya Kumar, head of the student union at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, claimed he was hit by lawyers chanting nationalist slogans. Kumar, who is accused of sedition, told the court he was manhandled on the way in and lost his shoes in the process. “I was rebuked, I was attacked,” he said.
Defence lawyer Vrinda Grover told Reuters: “A person has come dressed as a lawyer and beaten him up inside the court premises today. The police couldn’t do anything, it’s a complete violation of the supreme court order.”
About a dozen lawyers threw rocks at reporters and protesters. One grabbed the camera strap of an Associated Press photographer, bruising his hand and breaking his lens.
The lawyers – many of whom had been involved in similar violence on Monday when reporters and Kumar’s supporters were beaten outside the court premises – waved Indian flags and chanted: “glory to Mother India” and “traitors leave India”.
The remand hearing was briefly adjourned as the supreme court rushed a team of commissioners to investigate the events at the Patiala House court in Delhi.
The court banned protests after Monday’s violence. Kumar, 28, was arrested at a student rally last week held to commemorate the anniversary of the execution of a Kashmiri separatist over his role in an attack on the Indian parliament in 2001. His supporters deny he made any incendiary remarks.
The reaction of authorities to the protests at JNU – which is well known for its politically active student body and strongly disliked by the Hindu right – comes against a background of what critics say is rising intolerance in India since Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata party swept to power in 2014.
The government has repeatedly been accused of seeking to repress free speech and encouraging extremist nationalists who systematically intimidate critics. Some independent commentators and legal experts have criticised the Modi government for exploiting the colonial-era sedition law to silence its opponents.
Soli Sorabjee, a former attorney general, deplored Kumar’s arrest. He told Reuters: “Any critical comment against government policy does not amount to sedition. Only acts that can disturb law and order or incite violence can be stamped as sedition.”
Modi’s party rejected the criticism. “The constitution is clear that freedom of speech does not extend to the right to promote secession; slogans that demand the disintegration of India cannot be condoned,” said MJ Akbar, a BJP spokesman.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...iversity-delhi
India: Outspoken Activists Charged with Sedition
Police Stand By While Suspect’s Supporters Assaulted in Court
(New York, February 20, 2016) – Indian authorities should stop charging peaceful activists with sedition for alleged anti-national speech, Human Rights Watch said today. In mid-February 2016, police arrested a student union leader, Kanhaiya Kumar, and a former teacher, S.A.R. Geelani, in apparently politically motivated cases. On February 15, a member of Delhi state legislature from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and others were filmed physically assaulting Kumar’s supporters in a New Delhi court while police stood by.
“The BJP government seems eager to punish peaceful speech – but less willing to investigate supporters who commit violence in the name of nationalism,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The authorities not only need to find out why BJP supporters were apparently involved in an assault inside a court, but also why the police did nothing.”
The Indian authorities should immediately drop all charges that violate the right to free expression, and fully investigate the attack inside the court and fairly prosecute those responsible, including any ruling party supporters, Human Rights Watch said.
On February 12, police in Delhi arrested Kumar, the student union leader, at Jawaharlal Nehru University, after the BJP student-wing accused him of making anti-national speeches on the anniversary of the February 2013 hanging of Mohammad Afzal Guru, who was convicted for his role in the December 2001 attack on parliament that killed nine people. Geelani, a former Delhi University teacher, was arrested on February 16, after participants at a separate Afzal anniversary event at the Press Club of India made anti-India slogans. Police said Geelani was charged with sedition because he had organized the event.
The police reportedly began conducting search operations in several Indian cities for other students they say were “ring leaders” after the minister for home affairs warned that those who shouted anti-India slogans and challenged India’s sovereignty and integrity during these meetings “will not be tolerated and spared.”
On February 15, when Kumar was produced in a Delhi court, a group of about 40 men wearing lawyers’ black jackets attacked students and university faculty members who had come to support Kumar.
Among those caught on camera apparently assaulting Kumar’s supporters was a BJP leader, Om Prakash Sharma. Sonal Mehrotra, a television reporter at the scene, reported that the assailants confronted her and several senior professors sitting nearby and threatened to harm them if they did not leave the courtroom. Five police officers were in the courtroom but did nothing. Mehrotra said that when she started recording violence outside, she was threatened again: “Around 10 lawyers cornered us and said give us your phones or we will break your bones.” Several journalists said they were threatened and attacked.
Sharma was arrested, briefly detained, and released on bail on February 18. He told India Today television that he had retaliated in self-defense. “If someone hits you, if they abuse your motherland, you have to react.” At the same time, Sharma also stood by an earlier statement he made after the incident: “If I had a gun I would have opened fire. If someone abuses our mother, won’t I hit him?”
Acting on a petition that alleged that the police were a “mute spectator to the brazen display of brute force,” the Supreme Court restricted the number of people inside the courtroom for Kumar’s hearing on February 17 and asked the police chief to ensure his safety.
However, as Kumar was being escorted inside the courtroom, men in lawyers’ black jackets slapped, kicked, and punched Kumar, according to media reports. The Supreme Court then rushed a delegation of senior lawyers to assess the situation, which confirmed that Kumar was assaulted and that the police had failed to ensure his safety. The Supreme Court has sought an explanation from the Delhi police commissioner by February 19. The Bar Council said it would revoke the licenses of any lawyers involved in violent attacks.
The government should undertake an independent investigation into the police response to the violence, Human Rights Watch said. Strong disciplinary measures should be taken against police personnel found negligent.
Kumar’s arrest has led to protests by students and academics in universities across India and has prompted condemnation from scholars around the world.
The case has highlighted the urgent need for India’s parliament to repeal the country’s sedition law, Human Rights Watch said. Section 124A of the Indian penal code prohibits any words, spoken or written, or any signs or visible representation that can cause “hatred or contempt, or excites or attempts to excite disaffection,” toward the government. India’s Supreme Court has imposed limits on the use of the sedition law, making incitement to violence a necessary element, but police continue to file sedition charges even in cases where this requirement is not met.
Repeated use of the law to silence peaceful speech is a violation of India’s international human rights obligations. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which India ratified in 1979, prohibits restrictions on freedom of expression on national security grounds unless they are provided by law, strictly construed, and necessary and proportionate to address a legitimate threat. Such laws cannot put the right itself in jeopardy.
“Prime Minister Narendra Modi is promoting Indian democracy around the world as an attractive market, and yet back home, his administration is cracking down on peaceful dissent,” Ganguly said. “Failing to uphold basic human rights is not a good global message.”
https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/02/19/...arged-sedition
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