New Delhi (TIP): Amnesty International has called on the Indian government to stop its “escalating crackdown” on protesters, farming leaders and journalists. In a statement, the human rights body, which shut shop in India in September last year, also called for the immediate and unconditional release of those arrested solely for peacefully exercising their right to freedom of expression.

It highlighted the case of Mandeep Punia, a freelance journalist for The Caravan, who was initially accused of obstructing the police and then of violence. Punia was detained for an initial period of 14 days without being allowed to see a lawyer but was later granted bail.

It regretted that rather than investigating reports of violence against protesters and bringing suspected perpetrators to justice, the authorities hindered access to protest sites and censored social media.

The Government had frozen Amnesty’s bank accounts for alleged violation of foreign exchange laws while the group said it was forced to withdraw from India due to “continuing crackdown” and “harassment”.

In its latest statement, Amnesty said the crackdown on those protesting the Citizenship Amendment Act still hasn’t ended, while new efforts to quell the anti-farm legislation protests have taken shape.

The UN Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights had on February 5 called on the Center and protesters to exercise “maximum restraint” and asked the Government should protect the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and expression.

Twitter suspends over 500 accounts after govt order

Twitter on Wednesday said it has suspended over 500 accounts, and blocked access to several others within India as it partly acceded to a government order to curb spread of misinformation and inflammatory content around farmers’ protests.

Twitter, in a blogpost, said it has not blocked accounts consisting of “news media entities, journalists, activists and politicians” as doing so “would violate their fundamental right to free expression” guaranteed under the country’s law.

The government, however, termed as “unusual” Twitter’s move to publish the blogpost before a slated talks with the IT Secretary on the issue, as sought by the US company.

“Upon the request of Twitter seeking a meeting with the government, the Secretary IT was to engage with senior management of Twitter. In this light, a blog post published prior to this engagement is unusual,” IT Ministry said in its response on Koo, a homegrown social networking platform.

The government will share its response soon, the post on Koo said. Koo is being touted as the homegrown contender to Twitter.

PM says govt ready for

talks, farmers announce rail roko agitation

As farmers continue to protest against the Centre’s agricultural laws for over 75 days, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday reiterated that the government was ready to discuss the issue. Farm union leaders, under the umbrella body Samuykta Kisan Morcha (SKM), said that they were still protesting the central leadership failed to offer any alternative to the three farm laws enacted in September last year.

The two sides have held 11 meetings so far to end the impasse over the legislation but the talks have remained largely inconclusive as the protesting farmers are bent on their demand of a complete rollback of the three contentious laws and legal guarantee for Minimum Support Price (MSP) while the government has ruled out the repeal of laws but has offered to make amendments.

Farmers have decided to intensify their demonstration against the agricultural laws and have called for a “rail roko” programme on February 18. On February 14, SKM will also hold a candle march as a tribute to the soldiers who lost their lives in the Pulwama attack in 2019. “Rail stop programs will be held on February 18… across the country,” farmer leader Darshan Pal said.

*Following PM Modi’s remark in the Rajya Sabha that a new breed of people has emerged in the country who cannot live without an agitation, Pal said, the Prime Minister termed those protesting against the farm laws as ‘andolanjivis’. “The truth is that we are struggling on genuine issues of farmers for the past six months and have not raised any issue or demand beyond it,” he was quoted as saying.