Amnesty International has urged authorities in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir to release a 14-year-old child who has been detained without charge or trial for seven months, for allegedly taking part in anti-government protests.
The boy is being held in prison and is abused by the authorities and therefore urgent action is needed.
Mushtaq Ahmad Sheikh, a child aged 14, has been detained without charge or trial by the Jammu and Kashmir authorities in India since 21 April 2010.
Mushtaq Ahmad Sheikh was initially held at Udhampur Jail and is now held at Kot Bhalwal Jail at Jammu. Both are regular prisons without any special facilities for detaining children.
The police claim that Mushtaq Ahmad Sheikh is 19 years old. His family members told Amnesty International that Mushtaq was born in 1996 and is therefore only 14 years old. Prison records are reported to also confirm that Mushtaq Ahmad Sheikh is indeed a child.
To my fellow bloggers, kindly post this onto your blogs and help AI in securing the release of the boy, by writing to the below mentioned addresses -
PLEASE WRITE IMMEDIATELY in English or your own language:
Demanding that the state authorities immediately end the detention without charge or trial of Mushtaq Ahmad Sheikh;
Urging that if charged with a recognizable criminal offence, Mushtaq Ahmad Sheikh be treated in accordance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and held and tried in special facilities for children;
PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 28 DECEMBER 2010 TO:
Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir
Omar Abdullah
Civil Secretariat
Government of Jammu and Kashmir
Jammu – 180 001
Fax: +91 191 2546466
Salutation: Dear Chief Minister
And copies to:
Minister of Home Affairs
P Chidambaram
North Block, Central Secretariat
New Delhi – 110 001
Fax: + 91 11 23094221
Email: hm@nic.in
Also send copies to diplomatic representatives accredited to your country. Please check with your section office if sending appeals after the above date.
You may also visit the Amnesty International website, to know more about it.
Here's the link -
http://amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/indian-authorities-must-release-14-year-old-held-kashmir-without-charge-2010-11-18
Thanks.
Friday, November 19, 2010
Thursday, November 18, 2010
URGENT ACTION NEEDED
URGENT ACTION
CHILD HELD WITHOUT CHARGE OR TRIAL IN INDIA
Mushtaq Ahmad Sheikh, a child aged 14, has been detained without charge or trial by the Jammu and Kashmir authorities in India since 21 April 2010. Following meetings with the state authorities, Amnesty International believes that a burst of public campaigning at this stage could lead to his release.
Mushtaq Ahmad Sheikh was arrested on 9 April 2010. He is alleged to have been part of a large mob which pelted police and security forces with stones during ongoing protests against the state in Srinagar, the capital of the northern Jammu and Kashmir state. He was released on bail after eight days in custody but was again detained without charge or trial on 21 April.
Mushtaq Ahmad Sheikh’s family was not informed that he was detained but came to know of it by chance when a local resident saw him in a police vehicle, being taken to a jail in another town.
Mushtaq Ahmad Sheikh was initially held at Udhampur Jail and is now held at Kot Bhalwal Jail at Jammu. Both are regular prisons without any special facilities for detaining children. Prison conditions in Jammu are harsh and the provision of health care is limited.
The police claim that Mushtaq Ahmad Sheikh is 19 years old. His family members told Amnesty International that Mushtaq was born in 1996 and is therefore only 14 years old. Prison records are reported to also confirm that Mushtaq Ahmad Sheikh is indeed a child.
His case was raised by Amnesty International in meetings with the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir and the State Human Rights Commission. Despite their assurances that they would look into the case, Mushtaq Ahmad Sheikh continues to remain in detention.
PLEASE WRITE IMMEDIATELY in English or your own language:
Demanding that the state authorities immediately end the detention without charge or trial of Mushtaq Ahmad Sheikh;
Urging that if charged with a recognizable criminal offence, Mushtaq Ahmad Sheikh be treated in accordance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and held and tried in special facilities for children;
PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 28 DECEMBER 2010 TO:
Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir
Omar Abdullah
Civil Secretariat
Government of Jammu and Kashmir
Jammu – 180 001
Fax: +91 191 2546466
Salutation: Dear Chief Minister
And copies to:
Minister of Home Affairs
P Chidambaram
North Block, Central Secretariat
New Delhi – 110 001
Fax: + 91 11 23094221
Email: hm@nic.in
Also send copies to diplomatic representatives accredited to your country. Please check with your section office if sending appeals after the above date.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Mushtaq Ahmad Sheikh is detained under the J&K Public Safety Act – a law that allows the state authorities to detain persons for up to two years without any judicial review of the allegations against them. Repeat detentions are also commonly ordered.
At least 322 people are reported to have been detained without trial under the provisions of the Public Safety Act in J&K in 2010 alone. A number of them, reportedly including some more children, have been detained on similar grounds of stone pelting and rioting during various protests against the Indian government throughout the summer of 2010.
CHILD HELD WITHOUT CHARGE OR TRIAL IN INDIA
Mushtaq Ahmad Sheikh, a child aged 14, has been detained without charge or trial by the Jammu and Kashmir authorities in India since 21 April 2010. Following meetings with the state authorities, Amnesty International believes that a burst of public campaigning at this stage could lead to his release.
Mushtaq Ahmad Sheikh was arrested on 9 April 2010. He is alleged to have been part of a large mob which pelted police and security forces with stones during ongoing protests against the state in Srinagar, the capital of the northern Jammu and Kashmir state. He was released on bail after eight days in custody but was again detained without charge or trial on 21 April.
Mushtaq Ahmad Sheikh’s family was not informed that he was detained but came to know of it by chance when a local resident saw him in a police vehicle, being taken to a jail in another town.
Mushtaq Ahmad Sheikh was initially held at Udhampur Jail and is now held at Kot Bhalwal Jail at Jammu. Both are regular prisons without any special facilities for detaining children. Prison conditions in Jammu are harsh and the provision of health care is limited.
The police claim that Mushtaq Ahmad Sheikh is 19 years old. His family members told Amnesty International that Mushtaq was born in 1996 and is therefore only 14 years old. Prison records are reported to also confirm that Mushtaq Ahmad Sheikh is indeed a child.
His case was raised by Amnesty International in meetings with the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir and the State Human Rights Commission. Despite their assurances that they would look into the case, Mushtaq Ahmad Sheikh continues to remain in detention.
PLEASE WRITE IMMEDIATELY in English or your own language:
Demanding that the state authorities immediately end the detention without charge or trial of Mushtaq Ahmad Sheikh;
Urging that if charged with a recognizable criminal offence, Mushtaq Ahmad Sheikh be treated in accordance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and held and tried in special facilities for children;
PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 28 DECEMBER 2010 TO:
Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir
Omar Abdullah
Civil Secretariat
Government of Jammu and Kashmir
Jammu – 180 001
Fax: +91 191 2546466
Salutation: Dear Chief Minister
And copies to:
Minister of Home Affairs
P Chidambaram
North Block, Central Secretariat
New Delhi – 110 001
Fax: + 91 11 23094221
Email: hm@nic.in
Also send copies to diplomatic representatives accredited to your country. Please check with your section office if sending appeals after the above date.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Mushtaq Ahmad Sheikh is detained under the J&K Public Safety Act – a law that allows the state authorities to detain persons for up to two years without any judicial review of the allegations against them. Repeat detentions are also commonly ordered.
At least 322 people are reported to have been detained without trial under the provisions of the Public Safety Act in J&K in 2010 alone. A number of them, reportedly including some more children, have been detained on similar grounds of stone pelting and rioting during various protests against the Indian government throughout the summer of 2010.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
India: Chhattisgarh authorities must immediately release Prisoner of Conscience Kartam Joga
Amnesty International has been closely following the case of Kartam Joga, an adivasi (Indigenous) political activist who has been imprisoned in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh. 40-year-old Kartam Joga has been in Dantewada district jail since 14 September 2010.
Amnesty International considers Kartam Joga to be a Prisoner of Conscience and that the charges brought against him are politically motivated and a pretext to detain him on account of his political activism which has never involved the use or advocacy of violence. The organization believes that the authorities in Chhattisgarh decided to imprison and charge him in response to the Supreme Court criticism
The organization believes that the real reason for Kartam Joga’s imprisonment is his peaceful political activities as an activist of the Communist Party of India (CPI) and an elected member of a local self-government body and his defence of human rights of adivasi communities.
In 2007 he had participated in petitioning India’s Supreme Court regarding human rights violations in Chhattisgargh and impunity for security forces and Salwa Judum, widely held to be a state-supported militia who were involved in operations against the armed Maoists in the Bastar region of the state since 2005.
The charges against him include collaborating with the Maoists in ambushing and killing 76 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel on 6 April 2010, murdering a leader of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Budhram Sodi in May 2010, killing the father of a special police officer attached to the CRPF in August 2010, and ambushing a truck and killing four persons on 7 December 2009.
Kartam Joga’s arrest and the bringing of these charges came after India’s Supreme Court, on 31 August 2010, criticized the Chhattisgarh government for being “wholly vague and indefinite” while replying to several questions raised by two petitions filed three years ago seeking an end to impunity and violations by the Salwa Judum and the security forces engaged in operations against the armed Maoists in Chhattisgarh since 2005. The first of the two petitions had been filed by Kartam Joga and two other CPI activists, and the second, by sociologist Nandini Sundar, historian Ramachandra Guha, and E.A.S. Sarma, a former civil servant.
The charges against him and his imprisonment are another glaring example of how the authorities in Chhattisgarh target those who have sought to consistently defend the human rights of the adivasi communities since 2005.
Two other human rights defenders in Chhattisgarh – medical doctor Dr Binayak Sen and cinematographer TG Ajay – spent two years since 2007 and three months in 2008 respectively in jail on charges of collaborating with the Maoists before they were released on bail. In May 2009, another human rights defender Himanshu Kumar, and some staff of his organization, Vanvasi Chetna Ashram, which continued to document the violations and abuses against the adivasi communities, had to flee the Bastar area after persistent harassment by the police and district authorities.
Kartam Joga underwent medical treatment and an operation for injuries he received when he was attacked by members of the Salwa Judum’s militia in 2005. Since then, he has been in the forefront of documenting and exposing human rights abuses against adivasis, including more than 500 unlawful killings and instances of sexual assault, rape and burning down of adivasi hamlets and houses and the displacement of more than 30,000 adivasis during the conflict in Chhattisgarh since 2005.
Acting on the petitions filed by Kartam Joga and others, the Supreme Court, in April 2008, directed India’s National Human Rights Commission to ascertain the veracity of the allegations; eight months later, an NHRC report confirmed some of the allegations and said there was a need for further investigation into the complaints of violence perpetrated by the Salwa Judum, the security forces and Maoists. Three months later, the Supreme Court asked the Chhattisgarh authorities to list the measures it had taken to disband the Salwa Judum militia, register and investigate complaints of violent acts during the conflict, and compensate and rehabilitate the victims.
The Supreme Court has now asked the Chhattisgarh government to file a comprehensive affidavit in response to the allegations made in the petitions. In On a specific point made by the petitioners that the Salwa Judum militiamen were acting as part of a new organization, Dandakaranya Shanti Sangharsh Samiti, the state authorities have claimed that the Salwa Judum “no longer exists” and that the investigations into its violence were hampered by difficult terrain, inaccessibility of villages, inclement weather and hostility from the Maoists. A further hearing in the case is due on 18 November.
Amnesty International considers Kartam Joga to be a Prisoner of Conscience and that the charges brought against him are politically motivated and a pretext to detain him on account of his political activism which has never involved the use or advocacy of violence. The organization believes that the authorities in Chhattisgarh decided to imprison and charge him in response to the Supreme Court criticism
The organization believes that the real reason for Kartam Joga’s imprisonment is his peaceful political activities as an activist of the Communist Party of India (CPI) and an elected member of a local self-government body and his defence of human rights of adivasi communities.
In 2007 he had participated in petitioning India’s Supreme Court regarding human rights violations in Chhattisgargh and impunity for security forces and Salwa Judum, widely held to be a state-supported militia who were involved in operations against the armed Maoists in the Bastar region of the state since 2005.
The charges against him include collaborating with the Maoists in ambushing and killing 76 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel on 6 April 2010, murdering a leader of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Budhram Sodi in May 2010, killing the father of a special police officer attached to the CRPF in August 2010, and ambushing a truck and killing four persons on 7 December 2009.
Kartam Joga’s arrest and the bringing of these charges came after India’s Supreme Court, on 31 August 2010, criticized the Chhattisgarh government for being “wholly vague and indefinite” while replying to several questions raised by two petitions filed three years ago seeking an end to impunity and violations by the Salwa Judum and the security forces engaged in operations against the armed Maoists in Chhattisgarh since 2005. The first of the two petitions had been filed by Kartam Joga and two other CPI activists, and the second, by sociologist Nandini Sundar, historian Ramachandra Guha, and E.A.S. Sarma, a former civil servant.
The charges against him and his imprisonment are another glaring example of how the authorities in Chhattisgarh target those who have sought to consistently defend the human rights of the adivasi communities since 2005.
Two other human rights defenders in Chhattisgarh – medical doctor Dr Binayak Sen and cinematographer TG Ajay – spent two years since 2007 and three months in 2008 respectively in jail on charges of collaborating with the Maoists before they were released on bail. In May 2009, another human rights defender Himanshu Kumar, and some staff of his organization, Vanvasi Chetna Ashram, which continued to document the violations and abuses against the adivasi communities, had to flee the Bastar area after persistent harassment by the police and district authorities.
Kartam Joga underwent medical treatment and an operation for injuries he received when he was attacked by members of the Salwa Judum’s militia in 2005. Since then, he has been in the forefront of documenting and exposing human rights abuses against adivasis, including more than 500 unlawful killings and instances of sexual assault, rape and burning down of adivasi hamlets and houses and the displacement of more than 30,000 adivasis during the conflict in Chhattisgarh since 2005.
Acting on the petitions filed by Kartam Joga and others, the Supreme Court, in April 2008, directed India’s National Human Rights Commission to ascertain the veracity of the allegations; eight months later, an NHRC report confirmed some of the allegations and said there was a need for further investigation into the complaints of violence perpetrated by the Salwa Judum, the security forces and Maoists. Three months later, the Supreme Court asked the Chhattisgarh authorities to list the measures it had taken to disband the Salwa Judum militia, register and investigate complaints of violent acts during the conflict, and compensate and rehabilitate the victims.
The Supreme Court has now asked the Chhattisgarh government to file a comprehensive affidavit in response to the allegations made in the petitions. In On a specific point made by the petitioners that the Salwa Judum militiamen were acting as part of a new organization, Dandakaranya Shanti Sangharsh Samiti, the state authorities have claimed that the Salwa Judum “no longer exists” and that the investigations into its violence were hampered by difficult terrain, inaccessibility of villages, inclement weather and hostility from the Maoists. A further hearing in the case is due on 18 November.
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