Amnesty says 'govt witch-hunt' forced it to stop all India operations

Amnesty International India said on Tuesday (September 29) that it has been “compelled to pause” all its ongoing campaign and research work in the country following a freeze on its bank accounts by the government.

The controversial rights body said it came to know about its bank accounts being frozen on September 10, and that it was “the incessant witch-hunt of human rights organizations by the government of India over unfounded and motivated allegations.”

“The constant harassment by government agencies, including the Enforcement Directorate, is a result of our unequivocal calls for transparency in the government, more recently for accountability of the Delhi Police and the government of India regarding the grave human rights violations in Delhi riots and Jammu & Kashmir,” said Avinash Kumar, executive director of Amnesty International India, in a statement uploaded on Amnesty’s website.

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“Treating human rights organisations like criminal enterprises and dissenting individuals as criminals without any credible evidence is a deliberate attempt by the Enforcement Directorate and government of India to stoke a climate of fear and dismantle the critical voices in India. It reeks of fear and repression, ignores the human cost to this crackdown particularly during a pandemic and violates people’s basic rights to freedom of speech and expression, assembly, and association guaranteed by the Indian Constitution and international human rights law,” said Kumar.

The rights body has also listed several instances of “harassment” by the government, including a 10-hour raid by the ED in 2018 at its premises, and recalled its testimony at the US Congressional hearing on the situation of human rights in South Asia with specific focus on Jammu and Kashmir.

It said the organisation has been compelled to let go of staff in India and pause all its ongoing campaign and research work.

“As part of the Nobel Prize winning movement, Amnesty International India holds itself to the highest evidentiary standards. Our work in India, as elsewhere, is to uphold universal human rights and build a global movement of people who take injustice personally,” it said.

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“Amnesty International India stands in full compliance with all applicable Indian and international laws. For human rights work in India, it operates through a distinct model of raising funds domestically. More than four million Indians have supported Amnesty International India’s work in the last eight years and around 100,000 Indians have made financial contributions,” the statement said.

“The fact that the government is now portraying this lawful fundraising model as money-laundering is evidence that the overbroad legal framework is maliciously activated when human rights activists and groups challenge the government’s grave inactions and excesses,” it added.