HomeLatest NewsRenowned Canadians demand immediate release of Teesta Setelvad & R.B. Sreekumar

Renowned Canadians demand immediate release of Teesta Setelvad & R.B. Sreekumar

Ottawa: Over 50 eminent personalities from Canada, including writer Margaret Atwood, have expressed concern over “India’s diminishing democracy”, requesting President Ramnath Kovind and Chief Justice N.V. Ramana to immediately release activist Teesta Setalvad and retired Indian Police Service (IPS) officer, R.B. Sreekumar.

Teesta Setalvad and R.B. Sreekumar were arrested for pointing to the role of the then Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, in 2002 anti-Muslim riots in the Indian state of Gujarat. Teesta also challenged in the Indian Supreme Court the Special Investigation Team’s clean chit to 64 people, including then chief minister Narendra Modi, in the riots case.

In their letters to the president and CJI of India, they said, “The circumstances surrounding their arrest and detention would indicate that due legal process and political activism have been troublingly conflated. Such actions threaten the international reputation of the country you head, which for decades has been respected as a secular, democratic republic guided and governed by the rule of law, and the reputation of the Supreme Court of India and the Indian judiciary, which for decades has been respected as an upholder of the rule of law and the secular, democratic constitution of the country.”

“Defending human rights is not a crime,” South Asia director of Human Rights Watch, Meenakshi Ganguly, said. “These arrests are clearly reprisals for pursuing justice for victims of the Gujarat riots and attempting to hold those who were in power accountable.”

The signatories of the letters include jurists, writers, artists, civil society organisers, and public intellectuals like Naomi Klein, Peter Leuprecht, Judy Rebick, Yavar Hameed, and Rohinton Mistry.

At a press conference in Canada, Pearl Eliadis, a human rights lawyer and one of the signatories to the letter, said that international solidarity against repression, such as these letters by eminent Canadians, is most important.

“It’s extremely important that governments be held accountable. […] the best way of doing that is to have the international searchlight of accountability pointed at them to make sure that there is no impunity for grave violations of human rights as have taken place in this particular instance,” Eliadis said.

The overwhelming sentiment at the press conference was that dissent is a hallmark of democracy, enshrined in democratic constitutions and democratic governance, and it was hoped that initiatives such as this reach the authorities and persuade them to drop their pursuit of charges against activist Teesta Setalvad and retired IPS officer R.B. Sreekumar and release them on bail forthwith.

The Supreme Court had on June 24 dismissed a plea challenging the Special Investigation Team’s clean chit to 64 people, including then chief minister Narendra Modi, in the 2002 Gujarat riots case. The plea was filed by Zakia Jafri, whose husband was murdered during the 2002 Gujarat riots.

Setalvad’s NGO, Citizens for Justice and Peace, took up several Gujarat riot cases, including the Gulberg Society case, where the petitioner had accused Prime Minister Modi and others.

“As a matter of fact, all those involved in such abuse of process, need to be in the dock and proceeded with in accordance with the law,” the apex court had said. Web Desk

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