A trial court in Bengaluru reportedly ordered the closing of the sedition case against Amnesty International India on Tuesday, January 8. The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) had filed a complaint against the organisation in August 2016, upon which the case was registered.
Calling the case a “waste of public money and resources”, Aakar Patel, Amnesty India’s executive director said, “This was a case that should never have been registered, given previous Supreme Court rulings on what constitutes sedition.” He also said that the case was a means of distracting from “real issues” and added, “The ruling vindicates everything that Amnesty India has said from the time this politically motivated complaint was filed.”
The sedition case was filed in August 2016, following Amnesty India’s campaign to secure justice for human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir in Bengaluru. Reportedly, in the protest meet, pro-freedom Kashmiris had raised slogans of “Azaadi” (freedom). Aside from sedition, the police’s registered FIR, on the basis of ABVP’s complaint, included offences such as “rioting”, “unlawful assembly” and “promoting enmity”.
Further hailing the court’s decision, Patel added, “…Our mission is to fight to defend the constitutional values of justice, equality and liberty for everyone in India, and we will not be cowed by those seeking to silence us. We will also continue to seek the repeal of India’s archaic sedition law, which is still used to harass and persecute human rights defenders.”