UAPA a Tool to Finish Democracy and Silence Dissent: PUCL

NEW DELHI:
The PUCL along with a hundred organisations organised successfully, the first day of the 3 day consultation on 20th of January, 2021, on the implementation of the UAPA. Repeal the UAPA and the NIA act was a strong sentiment that speaker after speaker stated reiterated from the three states of Telengana, AP and Delhi.

Making a strong pitch of how unconstitutional and anti human rights the UAPA law was, V Suresh, the General Secretary of the PUCL stated that the UAPA had reversed every element of the principles of natural justice, where the accused had to prove his / her innocence, illegal detention was justified for more than 6 months, bail grounds were not what was in criminal law, instead even a prima facie involvement in the case, was a denial of bail. With this backrop, the UAPA had become a tool to silence dissenters and as a means to throw them in prison and deny them their civil liberties indefinitely. While in its early incarnate, since it replaced POTA in 2004 it was brazenly used on Muslims and Tribals mainly in the name of Terrorism and Maoism. But after the law became more stringent it continued targeting the Muslim, Tribals, Dalits, but also the intellectuals, political critics, trade unionists, lawyers and activists who are doing absolutely constitutional work.

Vice President Mihir Desai, talked of how the NIA act and the NATGRID were used to further persecute those targeted and that there was a complete invasion of the privacy of those who came under the radar of these agencies.The NATGRID collected information from 12 agencies and that people were subjected to a constant surveillance. Under the NIA act there was complete finishing of the state’s power of knowing what was happening and it also had the powers to not disclose to the prosecuted the witnesses against his him. Along with the UAPA the NIA Act had to be repealed.

The Human Rights Forum and the Civil Liberties Committee, AP and Telangana, made a chilling presentation of what was happening in the two states which were non BJP. Even the most basic tool of human rights work, like Fact Finding was criminalised. Speaking on this occasion advocate Madhava Rao via various FIRs explained how the targeting of activists had become the norm. There would be random statements from anybody who had been picked up with so called sedtious materials, human rights activists would be blamed for providing it. And that they were associated with any Maoist organisation. That was enough to being picked up and harassed.

Advocate Kranti Chaitanya and High Court lawyer V. Raghunath stated that working for simple development like that of education, health, food security was a crime, to struggle against caste violence could get you booked under the UAPA and the people were thrown into jail for years together before bail was granted. In some FIRs 64 activists, in another 89 activists were named of all categories, including students, dalit, tribal, women, civil liberties, environmental and the rest. It was humanly impossible for a single person to remember these numbers of organisations and their representatives. They took a strident position, that these laws had to go or else, people would not be in a situation of discharging their ordinary duties as citizens.

N. Ravi Sharma, who had spent more than 7 years in jail and recently 8months, for forming an anti hindutva fascist front with several organisation described at length how the police operates with instructions from “above”. It was your views which got you behind bars. Holding different views was enough for you to be incarcerated. Similarly Swechata Prabhakar, talked of her father D Prabhakar of the Kula Unmulan Pareta Samiti, found himself in jail as he challenged caste violence, which was not acceptable and he was termed a maoist.

The Delhi presentation was in two parts, relating to the conspiracy case of the Delhi violence which followed the anti CAA, NRC, NPR protests and the ongoing farmers protest, around Delhi of several lakh farmers. It was clear that the UAPA was being used in both cases, as the Union of India had decided to criminalise protests. Which took away the core freedom principle of the Indian Constitution, relating to freedom of speech and expression of the common people,. Speaking in the Consultation, Advocate Shahrukh Alam, compared various judgements on the right to protest, including the judgement on the Shaheen bagh road block, with the Amercian jurisprudence on protest, which was crystal clear, that a road block due to protest, is equivalent to a traffic block and the crime was no greater than that. It was not criminalised, like in the context of the delhi cases where it was branded as a terror act.

Nadeem Khan of the United Against Hate, talked of the profiles of the 23 arrested under UAPA, all under thirty five , except for two. More than 400 people had been summoned by the Special Cell of the Delhi police trying to basically fix confessions under threat of them being thrown into the person indefinitely in Jail or by creating a culture of fear, that comrades who struggled together had even stopped talking to each other. Lawyers also had played a big role in silencing any public challenge to the culture of fear. And most of those itnerroagted, would not speak out.

Apoorvanand added that any person who agreed with the Anti CAA protests and had spoken out was criminalised and the Delhi police, had not even spared yogendra yadav, Himself, Rahul Roy, Harsh Mander. to name a few. They had even targeted lawyer Mehmood Pracha, who was representating many clients of the Delhi riots. The Delhi police was behaving in the most tyrannical manner.

Speaking about the notices received by the farmers struggle, Advocate Guneet Kaur said that atleast a 100 notices of the NIA, relating to FIR 40/2020, DEcember 15th NIA police station, had been received by mostly supporters, doing sewa or leaders of the protest. The nature of the interrogation consisted of People being called to Delhi and being asked to submit their bank account details. This seems like a massive intelligence exercise. The FIR no where mentions the Sanyukta Kisan morcha. Nowhere the word kisan/farmer is mentioned. It is as vague as this, that there is threat from banned organisation like Sikhs for Justice, Babar Khalsa are sending money from abroad to individual people to promote terrorism etc, she said. .

Journalist Sandeep Singh, who was continuously at the Singhu border, drew up the profiles of those who were being targeted, which were mainly the supporters of the protest. It was shockign to see how several journalists, activists, like minto Malwa, who works to get bonded labourers released in the Punjab, had also received notices. It was sad that the NIA is

continuously mentioning that this FIR is nothing to with the Andolan, and the Minister Narendra Tomar tried to show that it was a coincidence that some of those involved with the protest by farmers were being investigated for having received foreign money in their banks, where the llegation is that money was received from Sikh for Justice.

The meeting concluded with Suresh, talking of the ways, that people could link up with the anti repeal campaign. Tomorrow, 21st january, 2021, the States of Assam, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala and Punjab and Haryana, will be presenting the situation of the UAPA. Lawyers, Activists and persecuted people will do the presenations.