Following is a statement issued by current and former faculty members and students of the University of Warwick in solidarity with the ongoing struggle of the students against the new citizenship law.
As students, alumni and faculty members of the University of Warwick, we stand in solidarity with all students in India who are engaged in protests against the discriminatory Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019. We believe that the right to dissent, protest and demonstrate are fundamental rights integral to all democracies. Articles 19 (1) (a) and 19 (1) (b) of the Indian Constitution explicitly state that the right to protest is a fundamental right. Such a right is safeguarded in international human rights conventions as well.
The peaceful and non-violent demonstrations by students have been met with extraordinary police violence, particularly in Jamia Millia Islamia and Aligarh Muslim University, with recent reports from established media sources indicating that police and paramilitary forces entered university campuses and hostels by force and brutally attacked students. As a consequence, hundreds of students have been injured, some very seriously. Such police action contravenes both the Constitution of India as well as international human rights laws. We call for an immediate end to state-led violence and for proper action to be taken against the perpetrators of it.
The Citizenship (Amendment) Act, passed by the Indian Parliament on December 12, 2019, accords the right to religious minorities from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan in acquiring Indian citizenship. By the same token, it directly excludes Muslims from the process. Combined with the expanding reach of the National Register of Citizens, this amounts to a virtual denial of citizenship based on religion and represents a complete negation of the ideals of equality and secularism that are an essential part of the Constitution of India. We join students and citizens all across India in support of their demand that this immoral law be abrogated at the earliest.
Dr. Rashmi Varma
Prof. Shirin Rai
Dr. Silvija Jestrovic
Prof. Bishnupriya Gupta
Amul Gyawali
Mantra Mukim
Prof. Shaheen Ali
Prof. Sarah Hodges
Dr. Sara Kalwala
Prof. SharunMukand
Dr. Jayanthi Lingam
Dr. Sam Adelman
Prof. Abdul Paliwala
Prof. Azrini Wahidin
Dr. Marianna Fotaki
Dr. CEK Maclean
Zameer Nawaz
Thomas Terence
Debjani Dasgupta
Subhashish Dey
Prof. Ann Stewart
Atisha Ghosh
Sudipa Sarkar
Divya Rao
Nishpriha Thakur
Somak Biswas
Prof. VirinderKalra
Dr. Shrikant Botre
Swanil Choksi
Arpan Mukhopadhyay
Sabera Bhayat
Shalini Rudra
Dr. Goldie Osuri
Debjani Dasgupta
Tanaya Guha
Te-Anne Robles
Rania Mohamed
Dr. Jonathan Vickery
Dr.Mouthan Solange
Prof. Nickie Charles
Dr. Gill Fregerio
Harbir Kaur
Michele Underwood
Dr. Nick Bernards
Faye Padfield
Dr. Julia Welland
Tanishk Saha
Krisna Satrio Perbowo
Prof. Pablo Mukherjee
Dr. David Hampshire
