The United Nations Human Rights Office on Thursday urged the Indian authorities to drop the cases lodged against author Arundhati Roy and former Central University of Kashmir professor Sheikh Showkat Hussain under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, for delivering allegedly provocative speeches in 2010.
On June 14, Delhi Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena sanctioned the prosecution of Roy and Hussain under section 13 of the anti-terrorism law, which pertains to the punishment for advocating, abetting or inciting any “unlawful activity”.
An offence under this provision of the law is punishable with up to seven-years imprisonment.
“We are concerned by the use of UAPA anti-terror law to silence critics,” the United Nations Human Rights Office led by High Commissioner Volker Türk said in a post on X. “Repeat call for review of law and release of human rights defenders detained under it. Urge authorities to drop cases against Arundhati Roy and Sheikh Showkat Hussain over comments on India-admin Kashmir.”
Roy and Hussain were booked based on a complaint filed on October 28, 2010, by Sushil Pandit, identified as a social activist from Kashmir.
Pandit had alleged that various speakers delivered provocative speeches on October 21, 2010, at a conference organised by the Committee for Release of Political Prisoners under the banner of “Azadi: The Only Way”.
Pandit claimed that the issues discussed at the conference pertained to the “separation of Kashmir from India”, which could jeopardise public peace and harmony.
“Kashmir was never part of India and was forcibly occupied by the Armed Forces of India and every possible effort should be made for the independence of the State of Jammu and Kashmir from India,” Roy had said, claimed Pandit, according to The Wire.
Besides the United Nations Human Rights Office, over 200 Indian academics, activists and journalists jointly wrote an open letter on July 21 urging the Centre to withdraw the cases.
The group said that it “deplores this action and appeals to the government and the democratic forces in the country to ensure that no infringement of the fundamental right to freely and fearlessly express views on any subject takes place in our nation.”
Opposition leaders have also criticised Saxena’s move sanctioning the prosecution of the Booker Prize-winning author and former professor.
“If by prosecuting Arundhati Roy under UAPA, BJP [is] trying to prove they’re back, well they’re not,” Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra said. “And they’ll never be back the same way they were. This kind of fascism is exactly what Indians have voted against.”
Roy on Thursday was honoured with the 2024 PEN Pinter Prize, set up in 2009 by human rights organisation English PEN in memory of the Nobel laureate playwright Harold Pinter. Roy will receive the prize on October 10, 2024 in a ceremony co-hosted by the British Library.
The Prize is awarded annually to a writer resident in the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, the Commonwealth or former Commonwealth who, in the words of Harold Pinter’s Nobel speech, casts an “unflinching, unswerving” gaze upon the world and shows a “fierce intellectual determination…to define the real truth of our lives and our societies”.
Also read: Why the sanction to prosecute Arundhati Roy under UAPA is legally suspect
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