Charities alarmed over closure of Amnesty offices, ask govt not to be like China

India should not replicate China by trying to stamp out dissent, civil liberty activists said on Thursday, alarmed over Amnesty International’s decision to temporarily close its offices in India after facing political protests and sedition charges.

Updated on: Aug 18, 2016, 16:58:14 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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India should not replicate China by trying to stamp out dissent, civil liberty activists said on Thursday, alarmed over Amnesty International’s decision to temporarily close its offices in India after facing political protests and sedition charges.

ABVP activists shout slogans at a protest against Amnesty International India in New Delhi. (PTI Photo)

Police launched an investigation after receiving a complaint from a right-wing students’ group that “anti-India” slogans were raised at an event hosted by the charity in Bengaluru last week. The rights group has asked its staff not to come to office for now.

The move has left charities and non-government organisations nervous.

“The government is investigating and I hope no charges will be framed,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, director human rights watch, South Asia.

“But the broader concern is that the anti-national narrative is picking up and we need to hear people raising slogans, which is a peaceful way as compared to (using a) gun.”

Since Prime Minister Modi came to power, the government has tightened rules regulating charities, including cancelling the registration of about 10,000 groups for failing to declare details of overseas donations.

Read: Amnesty India temporarily closes offices, postpones events after sedition row

The government accused foreign charities of trying to hamper industrial projects on social and environmental grounds, and Modi criticised what he called “five-star activists.” The charities say they are being targeted selectively as part of a campaign to control free speech and dissent.

The Amnesty move signals a further shrinking of space for civil society and dissent in India, said Ravi Chellam, head Greenpeace India, which faced shutdown after authorities blocked foreign funding and froze its bank accounts last year.

“I don’t think amnesty will close office in India. Police has received a complaint and registered it. I don’t think action can be taken against the institution,” Chellam told Hindustan Times.

“On the larger issue of action against NGOs, if the institution is at fault action should be taken but someone should not be targeted for raising voice against the government.”

Nikhil Dey, a leading Right to Information activist, termed the sedition charges against Amnesty as unfortunate, saying an institution cannot be booked for sedition.

Read: Space for civil society and dissent in India is shrinking: Amnesty India chief

“The Supreme Court has clearly spelt that sedition charge can be invoked only if there is incitement to violence. In Amnesty’s case, nothing like that happened,” he said.

Earlier this week, political activists linked to the BJP protested against the rights group, accusing it of inciting hatred against the state at a seminar aimed at raising awareness over the lack of justice for families of victims in Kashmir.

Amnesty said the allegations against the organisation were unsubstantiated, but admitted that slogans calling for Kashmir’s independence were chanted by some people attending Saturday’s seminar.

Most activists Hindustan Times spoke to said if Amnesty closed its office in India then it would send a wrong message to the world.

“India should not try to replicate China where dissent is not allowed,” said Ganguly.

“The Government boasts of democracy, the role of civil society to promote India as an attractive place for international investors. Using laws like sedition and allowing hecklers to shut down free expression will severely damage those claims.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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