The Indian government has frozen Amnesty International India’s bank accounts, bringing all the work being done by the organization in the country to a grinding halt.
Amnesty International India said in a Sept. 29 media release that the government’s action was taken on Sept. 10.
The rights group said they have had to let go of staff in India and pause all its ongoing campaign and research work.
“The continuing crackdown on Amnesty International India over the last two years and the complete freezing of bank accounts is not accidental,” said Avinash Kumar, executive director of Amnesty International India.
Kumar said they had been subjected to the “constant harassment by government agencies including the Enforcement Directorate” because of their advocacy work including calling for government transparency, more recently seen with its calls for accountability of human rights violations in Delhi riots and Jammu & Kashmir.
“For a movement that has done nothing but raise its voices against injustice, this latest attack is akin to freezing dissent,” said Kumar.
Amnesty and other groups have accused police of complicity in the riots in Delhi in which at least 50 people were killed, most of them Muslims.
Police denied the allegation.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has faced accusations that it is clamping down on dissent, including in Muslim-majority Kashmir, where insurgents have battled government forces for more than 30 years.
Critics also say the government is pushing a Hindu-first agenda, undermining the secular foundations of India’s democracy and raising fears among its 170 million Muslim minority and a smaller number of Christians.
The government has been tightening oversight of foreign non-governmental groups (NGOs), they say.
Last week, the government enacted changes in the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Amendment Bill setting new conditions for organisations.
Some NGOs said the measures seeking tighter control of funds were aimed at creating an air of distrust.
Amnesty International India said they stand in full compliance with all applicable Indian and international laws. For human rights work in India, it operates through a distinct model of raising funds domestically, the rights group said.
“More than four million Indians have supported Amnesty International India’s work in the last eight years and around 100,000 Indians have made financial contributions,” the rights group said. “These contributions evidently cannot have any relation with the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010,” the group said.
Amnesty International India said how the government is portraying this “lawful fundraising model as money-laundering is evidence that the overbroad legal framework is maliciously activated when human rights activists and groups challenge the government’s grave inactions and excesses.”
Amnesty International India said what has occurred is an extension of what it called “various repressive policies and sustained assault by the government on those who speak truth to power”.
“Treating human rights organisations like criminal enterprises and dissenting individuals as criminals without any credible evidence is a deliberate attempt by the Enforcement Directorate and government of India to stoke a climate of fear and dismantle the critical voices in India,” Kumar said.
“It reeks of fear and repression, ignores the human cost to this crackdown particularly during a pandemic and violates people’s basic rights to freedom of speech and expression, assembly, and association guaranteed by the Indian Constitution and international human rights law,” he said.
With Reuters
Source: Licas Philippines
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