South Asia

Articles

• India: ‘Not Cooperating’: Gujarat Police Seeks 14-Day Custody of Teesta Setalvad
  26 June, by siawi3

  The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of Human RIghts Defenders, Mary Lawlor, on Sunday took to Twitter to express concerns over Setalvad’s detention. She also said: “Teesta is a strong voice against hatred and discrimination. Defending human rights is not a crime. I call for her release and an end to persecution by Indian state.”

• India: Teesta doing okay so far in police custody: Javed Anand
  30 June, by siawi3

  CJP stands in solidarity with the human rights defenders targeted by a vindictive state. A healthy democracy needs voices of dissent. We also need human rights defenders and social activists to work tirelessly to uphold our shared values of equality, peace and justice.

• India: The arrest of human rights activist Teesta Selavad & Others, and protests by citizens groups
  30 June, by siawi3

  The Modi Years: The assault on civil society and human rights activists and critics continues

• India: Beheading for blasphemy in Udaipur by 2 extreme right Muslim fundamentalist
  30 June, by siawi3

  Indian Muslims for Secular Democracy condemns in strongest terms the brutal murder of Kanhaiya Lal in Udaipur by 2 Muslim fanatics, who have openly declared that they did so for the love of the prophet & thus is a case of death for Blasphemy! We, the undersigned from diverse sections of society collective and unequivocally condemn in strongest terms the barbaric and brutal beheading of a person in Udaipur, India, for a social media post defending an obnoxious and reprehensible statement against Prophet Mohammed during a TV discussion recently. It is imperative that we as Indians unite to resist and defeat all forms of religious extremism, hatred & violence. We cannot have any sympathy for those extremist Muslims who espouse the ideals of the Taliban or ISIS, or those extremist Hindus who want to turn this country into a fascist Hindu Rashtra.

• India: Communalism - Should the Islamic World’s Outrage Over BJP’s Remarks on the Prophet Worry Indian Muslims?
  30 June, by siawi3

  India has multiple blasphemy laws being actively enforced. The so-called anti-‘love jihad’ laws, anti-cow slaughter laws and anti-conversion laws are all essentially anti-blasphemy laws. Count the number of Hindus charged or arrested under these laws. The mob lynching of Muslims is mass enactment of other, unwritten blasphemy laws.

• On illiberalism in Modi’s India: The rising tide of Hindu majoritarianism
  1 July, by siawi3

  A year before he ascended to the prime ministership of India in 1947, Jawaharlal Nehru proclaimed that his nation was ‘a cultural unity amidst diversity, a bundle of contradictions held together by strong but invisible threads’. Yet, in the seventy-five years since India’s independence, secularist tolerance of religious and cultural difference has been eroded by a rising tide of Hindu majoritarianism.

• India-Pakistan: Udaipur killing
  1 July, by siawi3

  No doubt, Pakistan continues to wrestle with the demons of extremism. Yet in India, thanks to the toxic politics engendered by Hindutva, Hindu majoritarianism and fanaticism are being promoted at the state level by excluding Muslims from the mainstream and treating them as perpetual outsiders and ‘enemies’.

• US re-engagement with Taliban may lead to release of $9bn
  1 July, by siawi3

  As the United States and the Taliban reengaged in Doha on Thursday, US officials defended the talks, saying that isolating Kabul’s de facto rulers would not promote US interests in Afghanistan.

• Pakistan: Gender rights
  1 July, by siawi3

  The last census says there are 10,000 transgender persons in Pakistan. But the real strength of the transgender population is about 300,000.Pakistan is counted among the 20-odd states to have given legal recognition to the ‘third sex’ — non-binary people. The police are a challenge. They are the biggest perpetrators of sex crimes against transgender persons.

• Pakistan: Attack on polio team
  1 July, by siawi3

  Aggressive campaigning for the administration of the polio vaccine is no longer enough, and a wide-ranging, sensitive and strategic effort is required to address the public’s suspicions regarding the government’s anti-polio efforts.

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