Amnesty International, the non-governmental human rights organization with headquarters in the United Kingdom has stopped its work in India on Tuesday. The organization has halted its work in the country after its bank account was frozen by the Government of India. They termed the action as “incessant witch-hunt of human rights organizations by the Government of India”.
According to a statement by the human rights organization, Amnesty International, “We came to know about the freezing of the accounts on September 10. The organization has been compelled to let go of its staff in India and pause all its ongoing campaign and research work. This is the latest in the incessant witch-hunt of human rights organizations by the Government of India over unfounded and motivated allegations.”
The organization claims that the government’s regular crackdown on the organization over the last two years and now the freezing of their bank accounts are not accidental.
Avinash Kumar, executive director, Amnesty International India said, “The constant harassment by government agencies including the Enforcement Directorate (ED) 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 the Delhi riots and Jammu & Kashmir.”
The organization also said that it has worked in full compliance with all the laws that are applicable. They also said that for India they work via a distinct model of raising funds domestically.
The statement issued by the organization added, “More than four million Indians have supported Amnesty International India’s work in the last eight years and around 1 lakh Indians have made financial contributions. These contributions evidently cannot have any relation with the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010.”
The NGO has further added that the recent development in which the government is now attacking the NGO firms as an unlawful model of money laundering is an evidence of the overbroad legal framework is maliciously activated when human rights activists and groups challenge the government’s gravest inactions and excesses.
They also added that attacks on the various human rights activist groups across the country, including them are nothing but an extension of the repressive policies and attacks of the government on those who speak the truth about the government and takes a stand against their decisions to defend human rights of the common people.
Kumar also added, “Treating human rights organizations 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. Instead, as a global power and a member of the United Nations Human Rights Council, India must fearlessly welcome calls for accountability and justice”
He also stated that this move by the government is unpleasant and stinks of fear and repression. He also added that the move ignores human cost during the ongoing COViD-19 pandemic and also accuses that the move violates basic human rights like freedom of speech and expression, assembly, and association which is guaranteed by the Indian Constitution and international human rights law.
According to the NGO, the first attack on them was done on October 25, 2018, when they had to endure a ten-hour long raid by the ED. They said, “Most of the information and documents that were demanded during the search were already available in the public domain or filed with the relevant government authorities. The residence of a director was also raided.”
Then again in 2019, the Income Tax Department sent investigative letters to several small donors of the organization. The investigative letter was sent to almost 30 small regular donors of the NGO. According to the statement by the human rights group, “Apparently, the department did not find any irregularities, but the process adversely affected the fundraising campaigns of Amnesty.”
In June of the same year, they were restricted permission of a press conference which they planned to organize in Srinagar to release the organization’s third “lawless law” report. The report was based on the misuse and abuse of the Public Safety Act in Jammu and Kashmir. The organization says that they were forced to digitally release the report.
The statement from Amnesty also said, “On October 22, 2019, Amnesty testified at the US Congressional hearing on the situation of human rights in South Asia with a specific focus on Jammu and Kashmir since the unilateral abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution of India. Two weeks after this (Nov 15) amid rumors of impending arrests of the organization’s top officials, the offices of Amnesty and the residence of one of its directors were raided again by the CBI.”
In April of this year, the organization contacted the Uttar Pradesh government over the phone to ask them to stop intimidating journalists during the pandemic. Thereafter, on 15 April 2020, the Cyber Crime Police Station, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh notified Twitter to furnish information about Amnesty’s Twitter account @AIIndia which the organization uses to monitor and analyze developments in international human rights law and Indian constitutional and criminal law related to human rights issues.
The statement added, “Marking the first anniversary of the abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution of India, Amnesty released an update on the situation of human rights in Jammu and Kashmir and on August 28, marking the six-month anniversary of the riots that took place in North-East Delhi we released an investigative brief on the complicity of Delhi police in the riots. The release of the two publications has provided fresh impetus to the establishment to harass and intimidate Amnesty through its investigative agencies. Now, on September 10, 2020, Amnesty came to know that all its bank accounts were completely frozen by the ED.”