Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and 10 other international rights groups have jointly condemned what they termed as Indian authorities’ misuse of counter-terrorism laws, financial regulations, and other laws to “silence journalists, human rights defenders, activists, and critics of the government”.
Their statement, released on Friday, comes in the wake of the recent search and seizure operations conducted against at least 46 journalists associated with NewsClick, and the subsequent arrest of the website’s editor and Human Resources head. The statement also refers to the recent sanction granted by the Delhi L-G to prosecute author Arundhati Roy in a 13-year-old case, with the human rights groups speculating that this was a reaction to Ms. Roy’s participation in protests against the NewsClick raids.
The statement also highlighted the alleged targeting of activist Teesta Setalvad, the Income Tax department’s raids at the BBC’s India offices, the filing of alleged “politically motivated charges” against student activists in the Delhi riots case, the arrest and detention of Kashmiri journalists Fahad Shah and Sajad Gul and Kashmiri human rights activist Khurram Parvez, and the continued detention of Dalit, Adivasi and Bahujan activists in the Bhima Koregaon case.
