Take action now! - Protesters arrested for opposing bigoted law in India
Meeran Haider, Shifa-Ur-Rehman and Safoora Zargar (who is three months pregnant) have been arrested for peacefully protesting the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), a law that legitimizes discrimination on the basis of religion and stands in clear violation of the Constitution of India and international human rights law.
Detained under the repressive Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), the three can be held without charge for up to 180 days – or even longer – a duration far exceeding international standards. With no provisions for adequate pre-trial safeguards against torture and other ill-treatment contained in the UAPA, as well as the imminent threat of a COVID-19 outbreak in the prison, there are grave concerns for the wellbeing of the three activists.
On 22 February, several peaceful protesters occupied a portion of the road near the Jaffrabad Metro station in northeastern part of New Delhi to protest against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act. A day later, Kapil Mishra - a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader - made provocative speeches and gave Delhi police a three-day ultimatum to remove the protesters. Shortly after Mishra’s speech, riots broke out and attacks by a Hindu mob on Muslims resulted in at least 50 deaths.
During the riots, verified videos of police officers pelting stones and beating young Muslims surfaced. In one such video, the police officers forced the men to sing the national anthem as they begged the police officers to stop. One of the men later died of the injuries.
While peaceful protesters face arbitrary detention under draconian laws, the allegations of excessive force against protesters during the CAA protests and subsequent riots which resulted in a number of deaths, as also pointed out in the communication by Special Rapporteurs dated 28 February 2020 to the Government of India, remain to be investigated
The Citizenship (Amendment) Act, enacted in December 2019, legitimises discrimination on the basis of religion and stands in clear violation of the Constitution of India and international human rights law. The Act while inclusionary in its stated objective, is exclusionary in its structure and intent. It amends the Citizenship Act of 1955 to enable irregular migrants to acquire Indian citizenship through naturalisation and registration. However, it restricts the eligibility to only Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan who entered India on or before 31 December 2014. The Act also reduces the requirement of residence in India for citizenship by naturalisation from 11 years to 5 years for these particular communities.
Take action now - write, email or Tweet the Indian authorities to call for the immediate release of Safoora Zargar, Meeran Haider and Shifa-Ur-Rehman!
