Human Rights Watch said today that Indian authorities are using politically motivated claims of tax evasion and financial irregularities to suppress human rights activists, journalists, and other opponents of the government. Authorities monetary officers raided journalists’ residences, news offices, an actor’s premises, and the home and office of a human rights activist in September 2021 in Srinagar, Delhi, and Mumbai.
The raids are part of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) government’s intensifying crackdown on freedom of expression, affiliation, and peaceful assembly since taking power in 2014. Authorities have brought politically motivated criminal prosecutions against activists, journalists, professors, college students, and others, including under broadly worded terrorism and sedition laws. They’ve also targeted outspoken teams using foreign funding laws and charges of financial malfeasance.
“The raids by the Indian authorities appear to be intended to harass and intimidate critics, and they are part of a larger pattern of attempting to silence all criticism,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, Human Rights Watch’s South Asia director. “These abuses erode India’s essential democratic institutions and fundamental freedoms.”
The Editors Guild and the Press Club of India, for example, have consistently called for an end to harassment of independent media, seeing it as a blatant violation of press freedom.
In recent years, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and a number of UN human rights experts have expressed worry about the narrowing space for civil society organizations, as well as increased harassment and prosecution of human rights activists and other critics. They have urged the government to ensure that no one is jailed for practicing basic human rights and to safeguard civil society organizations in the country.
“By stifling basic freedoms at dwelling, India is undercutting its affect as a world chief selling human rights,” Ganguly stated. “The federal government wants to alter course and uphold the fundamental rights of its individuals.”
Washington Center for Human Rights calls on the Indian government to respect the law and freedoms and to work hand in hand with civil society organizations to ensure that harrsment and protections of human rights activists come to and end. We argue the Indian government to release all the critics and activists in Indian prisons.