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DAM-L t.o.I: amnesty reaction to nba arrests
Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2000 06:38:01 +0530
From: Himanshu Thakkar <cwaterp@del3.vsnl.net.in>
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Subject: Times of India: Amnestry International Flays Gujarat Govt for NBA arrests
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Source: The Times of India, Ahmedabad, Aug 26, 2000
Amnesty International flays
arrest of NBA activists
GANDHINAGAR: The Amnesty International has taken
a strong exception to the detention of anti-dam
activists in
the Narmada Valley on Thursday. In a letter faxed to
the
Gujarat government from London, the authoritative
international human rights body has said "those
arrested
in Vadodara and other parts of Gujarat" had been
"detained solely on the grounds" that they were
"planning
to exercise their right to freedom of opinion and
freedom
of peaceful assembly and association."
Quoting articles 19 and 20 of the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights, the Amnesty has told the state
government that these articles "provide that everyone
has
the right to freedom of opinion and expression and
association." The Amnesty emphasises, "these rights are
reflected in Article 19 of the Constitution of India,"
adding, around 600 people were detained when they
were planning to go to Maharashtra to "attend a public
hearing."
The Gujarat government declared here on Friday that the
Amnesty had no business to poke its nose into what
happened in and around Vadodara. But veteran
Congress leader Haroobhai Mehta is agrees with the
view that the detention was "unconstitutional and
undemocratic." Mehta, one of those detained along with
Narmada Bachao Andolan activists, has said that he,
along with former Delhi High Court chief justice
Rajinder
Sacher, wanted to attend the public hearing in
Domkhedi,
Maharashtra as "independent observers and not part of
the NBA."
Mehta said, "the Gujarat government has no right to
intervene in an event that was to take place in
Maharashtra," and it had "misused the law and order
machinery." But, talking with The Times of India,
additional chief secretary (home) V V R. Subba Rao
said, "the Amnesty seems to taking part in a
vilification
campaign against the state government," adding, "it is
well
within the jurisdiction of the district magistrate and
the
local police to take whatever steps they may consider
fit
to stop any agitation likely to turn violent."
He added, "the A only provided the NBA activists a safe
cover, nothing else," adding, "we do not understand why
the NBA wants to create problems when it knows the
public sentiments in Gujarat."
Officials said, at a time when the case on Narmada is
pending in the Supreme Court, "the method adopted by
the NBA would only disrespect towards the democratic
institutions," adding, "those restrained were left
immediately. The government is not concerned with what
the activists think or what they would have said in the
public hearing. It was a preventive restraint."
Yet, no official in the state government is ready to
confirm as having received the Amnesty protest fax.
Ahmedabad's human rights activist Achyut Yagnik of
SETU said, though he was not anti-dam, "there was
little
reason for the police to restrain those seeking cross
Gujarat borders as none of the pro-dam activists had
planned any counter-agitation of the type organised by
Ms Urmila Patel in Ferkuva."
"Preventive detention could have had some meaning if
such a counter-agitation would have taken place,"
Yagnik
added. NBA leader Medha Patkar, once associated with
SETU, broke from the organisation as it refused to take
an anti-dam perspective even while defending the
displaced.
----- End of forwarded message from owner-dam-l@sandelman.ottawa.on.ca -----