Guest Post by PEOPLE UNITED AGAINST REPRESSION ON ANTI CAA PROTESTERS

Over the past two months the Delhi Police has arrested Jamia students Safoora Zargar, Meeran Haider, Asif Iqbal Tanha, JNU students Natasha Narwal and Devangana Kalita along with activists Ishrat Jahan, Khalid Saifi, Gulfisha Fatima, Sharjeel Imam and hundreds of other Muslim youth. Some among them have been booked under the amended UAPA as a means of punishing the widespread protests against the CAA-NRC that emerged across the country in December last year. Most recently AMU students Farhan Zuberi and Ravish Ali Khan have been arrested by the UP police for participating in the anti-CAA protests. It is clear that the spate of arrests are far from over and new names of democratic activists are likely to be added to this already long list. Meanwhile those openly advocating violence against peaceful protesters such as Kapil Mishra, Parvesh Verma and Anurag Thakur have gone scot-free.

It is clear that the ruling dispensation, while refusing to engage with any social movements, prefers to silence all critical voices through blatant state repression and the use of draconian laws. Earlier, the government framed a number of democratic rights activists and academicians on the pretext of the Bhima Koregaon case. Other anti CAA activists such as Akhil Gogoi who has been charged under UAPA, Bittu Sonowal, Manas Konwar, Dhairjya Konwar and several others have been arrested in the course of the movement and continue to languish in prison. At a time when the government’s energy and resources must be engaged in fighting the ongoing health crisis and an economic slowdown of a devastating scale, which has caused thousands of lives to be lost and millions of livelihoods to be destroyed, the government’s efforts to stifle dissent by arresting students and activists is a shameful display of its oppressive power and misplaced priorities.

The attack on the anti-CAA protesters who participated in the democratic struggle against disenfranchisement of Muslims, Dalits, Adivasis, workers, women and all marginalized communities is an attempt to systematically demobilise the movement against CAA-NRC-NPR. It is a continuation of the government’s communal and anti-people policies which seek to undo all Constitutional safeguards available to its citizens and make an example of those who speak up to also silence others. As labour laws are dismantled, educational institutions become increasing inaccessible, unemployment reaches unprecedented levels and violence in society against workers, minority and marginalized communities, women and students increase with impunity, the people of this country must speak in a united voice to challenge this regime of oppression!

Join the call for protesting against the government’s repression on democratic voices! We appeal everyone to organize protests in their respective campuses or areas maintaining norms of physical distancing.

Release all activists of the anti-CAA movement!

Immediate attention to the plight of migrant workers and toiling masses instead of repression of democratic voices of dissent!

Arrest the Real Culprits of the Delhi Pogrom!

Release all political prisoners!

Scrap CAA-NRC-NPR! Scrap UAPA!

PEOPLE UNITED AGAINST REPRESSION ON ANTI CAA PROTESTERS