India: when anti-terrorism becomes a weapon of massive muzzling

Text by: Côme Bastin Follow

3 min

In India, the Covid-19 pandemic is accompanied by an unprecedented wave of arrests. In recent months, many professors, activists, intellectuals and students have been put behind bars for sometimes questionable reasons. A tool is widely used, the UAPA, or Unlawful Activities Prevention Act.

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In principle, this is an anti-terrorism law. But in effect it has become a weapon to incarcerate all kinds of people very easily, without established evidence, in India . The latest emblematic case is the arrest of English professor Hany Babu at the University of Delhi. The man was an activist, especially on the rights of the lower castes , but he had never participated in terrorist activities.

"  The police came to our house early in the morning and seized my husband's computer and two books that can be found in the market!" Then the Central Investigation Agency arranged to meet my husband in Bombay. He went there naively without even taking any business,  ”his wife Jenny Rowena testifies with emotion.

Then to add: "  They told him that we had found on his computer letters from Maoists, which we had never heard of! Two days ago my husband was sent to prison. And the only evidence against him are these documents that were found on his computer, without being given a copy of the original content, without any search warrant. All because of the UAPA  ”.

A panel of people arrested

Another professor wrote a few days ago that this arrest was an attack on democracy. He was questioned by the police, his phone was confiscated, but he has not yet been arrested.

The case of Hany Babu is linked to clashes between defenders of the untouchables and Hindu fundamentalists, after which 11 people have already been placed in jail. Among them, the poet Varara Rao, arrested at age 80 and who recently contracted covid .

The same phenomenon is at work concerning the violent riots which shook New Delhi, before the pandemic. All those who are believed to have participated in the movement against these laws deemed anti-Muslim are threatened or imprisoned. And then of course, journalists or dissenting voices linked to the Kashmir issue. Or even environmental activists, several sites of which have been blocked thanks to the UAPA.

An increasingly used law

Data from the National Crime Bureau shows that his job exploded under the chairmanship of the Hindu BJP party in 2014. “  From 2000 to 2010, UAPA was never used. As of 2014, there are 966 cases. In 2015, 897. In 2016, 922. In 2017, 901. Then in 2018, a significant increase with 1182 uses of the law. We do not yet have the figures for 2019 but there will surely be an increase,  ”says Jayna Kothari, director of the Bangalore Law Center.

According to Amnesty International India, three-quarters of these arrests result in no conviction. But these are so many years during which dissenting voices are muzzled. For many, the government's great fear is to see the opposition mobilize again after the Covid . And these arbitrary lock-ups a way to intimidate those who still speak freely.

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• India
• Terrorism
• Human rights

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