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Modi Is Worsening the Suffering from India’s Pandemic. An authoritarian apparatus is being turned on wider society with lethal consequences  https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/modi-is-worsening-the-suffering-from-indias-pandemic/

By going after those who seek help, or who question or critique the government’s abandonment of Indians during the COVID catastrophe, the regime is extending a repressive apparatus it has finessed through its seven-year rule to target grassroots activists, human-rights defenders, academics and journalists.

At the receiving end of this abuse of the law are some of India’s most dedicated advocates of social justice. These include Mahesh Raut, a community organizer in central India, where over 300 villages have asked for his release; Akhil Gogoi, a peasant activist in the northeastern state of Assam who in early May won a state legislative election from jail, where he has been held since December 2019; Stan Swamy, an aged Jesuit sociologist and Parkinson’s patient who at the time of his arrest in October 2020 was a lead petitioner in a public-interest litigation for the release of Dalit and Adivasi undertrials (people incarcerated without trial, often for years) in the state of Jharkhand; Khalid Saifi, a Delhi-based activist with United Against Hate, a group campaigning against hate crimes; Anand Teltumbde, a leading academic and thinker; and Sudha Bharadwaj and Surendra Gadling, veteran human-rights lawyers who have been in prison since mid-2018 without bail or trial.

India’s Supreme Court recently ordered the decongestion of jails and parole for undertrials..  But activists, academics and social workers like those above can expect little relief because the Modi government has booked them under draconian anti-terrorism laws and vehemently opposes their bail pleas in court. Earlier this month, agonized families of several human-rights defenders told the press that the pandemic was turning prisons into death traps with overcrowded barracks, COVID-infected inmates, little access to doctors, medicines or COVID vaccines, and an occasional phone call at the mercy of authorities serving as the only link to the outside world.

Also see: http://emeets.lnwr.in/index.php/me-mes-for-civil-liberties/uapa/616-release-the-bhima-koregaon-16-and-compensate-them

Posts on Use of UAPA in the Bhima Koregaon Case: http://emeets.lnwr.in/index.php/bk16

Other posts on UAPA: http://emeets.lnwr.in/index.php/me-mes-for-civil-liberties/uapa

Excerpts: US State Dept Report Records Increasing Use of UAPA by Indian Government

The report cites the conditions in which the incarcerations of a pregnant Safoora Zargar, and ageing activists Varavara Rao, Sudha Bharadwaj and Stan Swamy progressed.

Kin seek release of 16 Bhima Koregaon accused due to Covid https://www.rediff.com/news/report/kin-seek-release-of-16-bhima-koregaon-accused/20210515.htm 

"There is no plan in place. Even the jail staffers are getting infected with coronavirus. Jail hospitals don't have doctors or trained staff to take care of the patients," "It seems there is no value to life if you are in a prison. A serious note should be taken and they (accused) should be temporarily released on bail,"

Full text of Press release:

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