NEW DELHI (The Thursday Times) — The United Nations, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have criticised India over the mass detention of protesters, opposition leaders, lawyers and journalists, as a movement demanding the removal of the country’s election chief refuses to back down.
Delhi Police detained more than 2,000 people on Saturday, Reuters reported, citing an official. The rights monitor CIVICUS puts the figure at at least 7,000. Thousands of police and paramilitary personnel were deployed across the capital, and mobile internet services were suspended in the central business district, according to Al Jazeera.
Those held included the founders of the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), the youth movement behind the protests, who were detained as their flight landed in Delhi. A court released them the next day.
“We are concerned by reports of mass detentions in India of demonstrators, protest leaders, members of civil society organisations, lawyers and journalists, before and during today’s large-scale demonstrations in Delhi,” UN Human Rights spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan said. The UN Human Rights Office called on Indian authorities “to ensure that the right to peaceful assembly is fully respected and fulfilled.”
Amnesty International told Al Jazeera that the detentions signal the government’s “desperate attempts to suppress critical voices.” Human Rights Watch said that “instead of addressing legitimate citizen concerns, institutions expected to uphold rights appear to be under the stranglehold of rising authoritarianism.”
The criticism builds on earlier findings. Amnesty International said in an August report, cited by CIVICUS, that police used unlawful and deadly force against peaceful protesters at an earlier CJP march and that no officer in Delhi had been held accountable.
The protesters are demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over a revision of the electoral rolls that, according to critics, removed around 130 million names. The Election Commission denies any wrongdoing. Police said the protests were held without permission.
The crackdown has continued. Two CJP leaders, Saurav Das and Ashutosh Ranka, were sent to five days of judicial custody this week after police said they breached barricades at Jantar Mantar. On Monday, thousands marched on the Supreme Court, where Rahul Gandhi filed a petition against the Election Commission, which the court is expected to hear on Thursday.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, speaking on Tuesday, defended India as the “mother of democracy.” The country, the world’s most populous, bills itself as its largest democracy.
