Civil liberties, human rights and
secular activists denounce the attempts of the Narendra Modi government to
falsely implicate Teesta Setalvad, secretary, Citizens for Justice and
Peace, and co-editor, Communalism Combat. Reproduced below are some of the
solidarity statements.
Appeal for immediate action
In a letter to the UN Special
Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, Human Rights
Defenders Alert-India calls for urgent action against the targeting of
those working for victims of the Gujarat riots
To Mrs Margaret Sekaggya, Special Rapporteur on
the situation of human rights defenders,
Madurai, October 27,
2010 Greetings from Human Rights Defenders Alert-India! HRD
Alert-India is a forum of human rights defenders for human rights
defenders in India. It endeavours to initiate actions on behalf of
human rights defenders under threat or with security concerns. We
are now writing to express our grave concern about the malicious and
motivated campaign spearheaded by a newspaper run by Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP) parliamentarian, Chandan Mitra, against Citizens for
Justice and Peace (CJP) and its secretary, Ms Teesta Setalvad, in
particular because of their work in cases relating to the Gujarat
riots.
About CJP Citizens for Justice and
Peace (CJP) was the response of a group of citizens from Mumbai to the
genocide in the Indian state of Gujarat. CJP’s objectives are, among
others, to promote communal harmony in India, to build public opinion
on the need for justice as an essential step towards reconciliation
and peace, to check threats to Indian democracy and the rule of law,
whether by governments or political parties or other organisations,
groups or individuals, to make legal interventions in the courts of
law through public interest petitions or otherwise, to prosecute all
those guilty of killing or maiming innocent citizens; and to assist
others petitioning before the courts for the redressal of grievances
and to set up or assist in setting up any lawyer/ team of lawyers to
effectively intervene in government-appointed commissions of inquiry
probing the causes of communal conflict.
Issue
A malicious and motivated campaign is being spearheaded by a newspaper
run by the BJP parliamentarian, Chandan Mitra, against CJP and its
secretary, Teesta Setalvad, in particular because of their work in
cases relating to the Gujarat riots…
While legal rebuttals and
legal notices are being pursued, it is critical that the issue is also
countered in the public domain. Especially so since it is a critical
time in this struggle for justice, when criminal investigations
against the chief minister, cabinet colleagues and administrative and
police top brass ordered by the Supreme Court of India are at a
decisive stage. Mrs Zakiya Ahsan Jaffri, the victim survivor and
co-complainant, has also been targeted by Praveen Togadia of the
Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) as also the trial court judge hearing the
trial.
The timing of all these allegations is significant.
While the Supreme Court is deliberating on allegations of mass murder
and criminal conspiracy, the allegations are the same and the people
making them are different. First, a star witness (Zahira Shaikh) was
won over by a BJP MLA (Madhu Srivastava, in 2004), then of the state
of Gujarat and now an accused, who was fielded for elections despite
being charge-sheeted for mass murder, and a former employee, Rais
Khan, who has been won over. In 2004 he was accused of kidnapping and
digging up graves. In between, a senior Supreme Court lawyer, another
BJP member of parliament, secured his ticket recently after switching
sides from appearing for the victims to appearing for the accused! Two
accused and the state of Gujarat too have made the same allegations.
These tactics are simply to frighten victims and intimidate
human rights defenders from pursuing the course of justice. While
the human rights defenders remain committed to the struggle, what is
crucial is that all citizens in India and the world committed to
justice and fair play join issue on this point. A false campaign of
“perjury” is being made against the human rights defenders. What is in
question are critical affidavits filed in the Supreme Court of India
by victim survivors through the CJP, pointing out the faulty
investigation, revealing the names of wrongly arraigned accused by the
Gujarat police and in fact pointing out that high-level state
collusion had prevented politically powerful accused from being named
in FIRs and charge sheets filed by the Gujarat police.
It has
come to our notice that the Supreme Court-appointed Special
Investigation Team (SIT) is, out of turn, harassing witnesses in a
manner intimidating them, by calling them for investigations on
tutoring. That, in any event, when these witnesses have already
deposed in the court and nothing has come on the record about any
tutoring despite aggressive cross-examination by seasoned defence
lawyers, the SIT’s actions are suspicious in respect of the line of
their current investigation. It appears that the SIT is trying to get
information against human rights defenders, as they are the ones who
pointed out the failures and laxity in the SIT’s investigations and
prayed for, and got, its reconstitution (2009-2010). The SIT in
its effort to discredit human rights defenders should not harass the
witnesses who are victims of violence that has led to loss of their
loved ones. They have been harassed enough already.
The cruel
incident of Kauser Bano, whose womb was slit open and her foetus
swirled on a sword, is not just being “obliterated” from the
narrative; the India Today and The Pioneer are making out that this
narrative was a concoction of Setalvad’s vivid imagination unmindful
of the fact that victims have deposed about this incident and several
newspapers had reported this incident in 2002.
Behind this
motivated attack is also an attempt to blot out the narrative of
gendered sexual violence that was central to the crimes committed in
Gujarat in 2002. Ironically, while several women witnesses have
deposed to this narrative in the ongoing trials in Gujarat, the state
and accused and other collaborators continue to wish to blot it away.
CJP has recently released a Shadow Report to the CEDAW (Committee on
the Elimination of Discrimination against Women) 47th Session in
Geneva that was reviewing India’s commitment to public justice and
reparation.
Appeal We request you to
ensure that the authorities in India Ø Guarantee, in all
circumstances, the physical and psychological integrity of Ms Teesta
Setalvad and all other human rights defenders from CJP. Ø Ensure
that the Special Investigation Team (SIT) does not harass witnesses in
the name of inquiry on tutoring to discredit human rights defenders.
Ø Ensure that fair trial proceedings take place. Ø Ensure that the
real perpetrators of the Gujarat carnage are brought to book to avoid
a similar genocide.
Looking forward to your immediate action
in this regard, Yours sincerely,
Henri Tiphagne,
National Coordinator, Human Rights Defenders Alert-India n
(Human Rights Defenders Alert-India is a national network for the
protection and promotion of human rights defenders in the country;
email: [email protected].)
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