Campaign Against State Repression, 24 April 2020

Over the last two weeks, across New Delhi, numerous activists and students have been targeted and harassed by the Delhi Police. Operating under an open-ended FIR, the police are attempting to accuse these persons, many of whom are engaged in providing indispensable relief work to workers and people bereft of food and other supplies due to the ill-planned COVID-19 induced lockdown, of instigating and executing the violence that engulfed North East Delhi in late February 2020. Three activists, Meeran Haidar and Safoora Zargar of Jamia Millia Islamia and Umar Khalid, former student of Jawaharlal Nehru University, have now been charged under several sections of the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) and Indian Penal Code (IPC).

These charges must not be seen as isolation. Rather, they are continuation of the numerous methods by which the State has sought to crush the vibrant struggle for democratic rights that emerged from the opposition to the communally charged and anti-people Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), National Registry of Citizens (NRC) and the National Population Register (NPR). It must be noted here that by accusing these persons of orchestrating the violence in North East Delhi, the State is in fact perpetrating an absolute travesty of justice.

That the violence which wracked North East Delhi was orchestrated is indisputable. However, its real perpetrators and planners not only remain free but also bask under the protection of the police and the administration. BJP leaders like Anurag Thakur, Kapil Mishra and Ragini Tiwari who have been recorded making inflammatory and communally charged speeches, urging violence against Muslims and all those opposing the CAA, NRC and NPR have not even been questioned. The numerous RSS and Bajrang Dal karyakartas involved in mobilising and leading the Hindutva mob that ransacked North East Delhi remain unprosecuted. The innumerable police personnel who viciously attacked Muslim youth and actively aided the Hindutva mob, continue to patrol the streets with impunity, and now brutalise the hapless and starving residents of Delhi in search of food and other rations.

While all this happens in the Capital, the situation in Kashmir is equally dire if not worse. While the lockdown in India commenced on 22nd March 2020, Kashmir has been under lockdown since the abrogation of Article 370 on 5th August 2019, causing immeasurable physical and mental harm to the Kashmiri people. The lack of mobility, scarcity of resources, restrictions on information, disruptions to work and education that people across the country face today has been a fixture in the lives of Kashmiris for the last 9 months. Furthermore, the country wide dearth of medical facilities is even more pronounced in the Kashmir Valley where the doctor to patient ratio is drastically below the country-wide average. Journalists like Masrat Zahra, Mushtaq Ganaie and Gowhar Geelani who have attempted to document the difficulties faced by the Kashmiri people, particularly during the spread of the COVID-19 virus, have faced the ire of the State and are charged under sections of UAPA and IPC. Notably, Peerzada Ashiq, a journalist who exposed the diversion of COVID-19 kits from Kashmir to Jammu has been similarly charged. It is a grave reflection of our times that even the performance of journalistic duties is deemed a terrorist act.

Targeting and marginalising Muslims on the Indian mainland and militarily repressing Kashmiris are nothing new for the Indian State. However, at a time when the material conditions of the broad masses have deteriorated severely and the State has adopted a Brahmanical Hindutva Fascist character, these actions must be viewed as part of the larger narrative of establishing the Hindu Rashtra. Efforts to degrade Muslims to second-class citizen status, attempted via the CAA, NRC and NPR, have continued even during the COVID-19 pandemic. The labeling of the Nizamuddin Markaz as part of a “Corona Jihad”, the boycott of Muslim essential service providers and the denial of medical care to Muslims, including pregnant Muslim women, are all part and parcel of these efforts. Mainstream media has drilled this communal narrative into the public discourse feeding prejudice and bigotry with sensationalist headlines and dubious reporting.

Today, a large section of the Indian masses face the dual risk of infection and starvation due to the BJP led Central Government’s refusal to bear responsibility to provide food and other rations during the lockdown. At such a time, when an eruption of popular anger against this complete disregard for the material conditions of the masses is possible, BJP led Central and State Governments and their lackeys in the mainstream media have made every effort to divert this anger towards the Muslim community. This narrative is being portrayed throughout the country in relation to COVID-19 and additionally in Delhi with regard to the violence in North East Delhi. This is a narrative that all democratic and progressive forces must condemn and combat.

Finally, it must be noted that the branding and targeting activists to demoralise and crush the movements they belong to is a tactic that the State is deploying with increasing frequency and intensity. Be it in the arrest of eleven academics, activists, lawyers, journalists and poets in the Elgaar Parishad-Bhima Koregaon case or the incarceration of Akhil Gogoi, Chingiz Khan, Ishrat Jahan, Dr. Kafeel Khan, Khalid Saifi, Sharjeel Imam and now several more, it is evident that the State is becoming more and more intolerant of any dissent or opposition. At such times, it is imperative that democratic and progressive voices speak out, else risk being silenced forever.

Campaign Against State Repression urges democratic and progressive organisations and individuals to condemn these charges against activists, journalists and students, demand that the arrested be released and the witch-hunt be ceased.

• Immediately stop the witch-hunt of activists and journalists in Delhi and Kashmir under the draconian UAPA.

• Immediate release of all arrested activists and political prisoners in fabricated cases particularly in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Immediate action (with restrain in light of COVID-19) against all the perpetrators of violence in North-East Delhi under the garb of cracking down on Anti-CAA protests.

• Repeal of all draconian laws including UAPA, NSA and PSA, among others.

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In another article published in People’s Dispatch, “Police Action Against Three Kashmiri Journalists Receives Widespread Condemnation”, Umer Beigh writes:

The media fraternity in Kashmir, along with several international human rights groups, has condemned the recent summoning and charging of journalists from Srinagar city under the draconian Indian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).

It began with 26-year-old Masrat Zahra, an independent photojournalist, being charged with state authorities of “posting and glorifying anti-national content on social networking sites” on April 18. Another journalist, Peerzada Ashiq with The Hindu, was also summoned by the police and a first information report was filed against him for allegedly filing a factually incorrect story without seeking confirmation from the district authorities.

On April 21, journalist Gowhar Geelani was charged with “glorifying terrorism in Kashmir Valley.”

Reporters Without Borders has demanded the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of the unfounded charges brought against Zahra. The association has stated that in the absence of any substantiation by the authorities, all charges against her should be dropped.

The Network of Women in India has also called the charges against her extremely preposterous, amounting to intimidation of journalists. “Her stories are photographs that are deeply empathetic and accurate reports of a ground reality… Her exceptional work as a photojournalist obviously causes discomfort among the powers that be,” the group responded to the news of her arrest.  

The Kashmir Press Club has condemned the harassment and summons to journalists covering the region, and has sought the cooperation and support of Indian and international journalist bodies in the face of the ongoing onslaught on free press in the valley.  It demanded the withdrawal of the first information reports against the journalists.

Meanwhile, the police have argued that Zahra’s social media posts dent the image of law enforcing agencies and cause disaffection against the country. “The user is uploading anti-national posts with criminal intention to induce the youth and to promote offences against public tranquility,” the police stated.

Masrat Zahra is a prominent photojournalists in Kashmir. “Police want to silence me. They want to suppress me as I bring out the repressed voices and stories of Kashmir,” said Masrat, “I am completely at a loss.”

Intimidation of journalists

Masrat Zahra is by far not the only journalist in Kashmir booked for allegedly harboring ‘anti-national’ views. Kamran Yusuf, a photojournalist with NewsClick.in, was imprisoned for six months. Asif Sultan, another reporter, remains imprisoned since being arrested in August 2018.

This February, the Kashmir Press Club documented cases against nearly a dozen journalists in Kashmir. It was noted that Kamran Yusuf was again picked up from his home by a police party on February 16.

“I saw policemen surrounding our premises. The police official asked me to come along and snatched my phones,” Kamran claims. “They checked my phones and searched everything on it. They asked me about some Kamran Manzoor and showed me his Twitter account. The police officer said that they had suspicion that I am running the account.”

According to Kamran, after failing to find anything to charge him with, the police let him go at around 1 AM. “My distraught family members were waiting outside and took me home,” he added.

The Kashmir Press Club has stated, “Physical attacks, threats and summons to journalists are being employed by security agencies to intimidate journalists. In fact, summons and harassment to (sic) journalists by the Police’s counter-insurgency centre (Cargo) in Srinagar has become a routine exercise. The harassment and questioning of journalists in Kashmir on flimsy grounds by the J&K Police for their work is in fact a damning verdict on the appalling condition in which the media is operating.”

The cases against Zarha and Ashiq have led to widespread outrage against Indian state authorities and an online solidarity campaign has been started for the revocation of the”flimsy cases” targeting the two journalists. 

Sharafat Ali, an award-winning photojournalist from Srinagar’s downtown area, has also accused the police and paramilitary forces of harassing and physically assaulting him. He claims that legal and physical intimidation of journalists is a common occurrence in the conflict-ridden region. “In 2018, I was beaten up by the senior police official who slapped me at least 20 times for clicking pictures in northern Kashmir. Most of the times, we are helpless here,” Sharafat told Peoples Dispatch.

(Courtesy: People’s Dispatch.)