The NYC “Defense of Democracy” rally brought together the rich diversity of the Indian Diaspora in the United States – scientists and engineers, service workers and computer professionals, artists and doctors, Hindus, Sikhs, Dalits and Muslims, policymakers, activists, left and liberal intellectuals and community leaders.

Commenting on the lynchings and targeted attacks on Muslims and Dalits that have increased exponentially since the coming to power of Narendra Modi in 2014, Sarah Anderson-Rajarigam of Dalit Solidarity Forum, one of the co-sponsors of the rally said, “Dalit Solidarity Forum deplores the heavy targeting of Dalits and other marginalized communities. We unite our voices with Dalits and other minorities in their fight for freedom and support them in their efforts to uphold the constitution”. Out of all the mob-lynching incidents by so-called ‘cow-protection’ mobs since 2010, 97% have taken place between 2014 and 2018.

Coalition for the Defense of the Constitution and Democracy (CDCD) have in their press release have stated that the BJP government has responsible for systematic erosion and weakening of democratic values and institutions. It has been attacking and weakening constitutional bodies such as the Election Commission, Supreme Court, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

The CBI and Income Tax department have also been used to intimidate media organizations critical of the BJP government.

Sunita Viswanath of Sadhana: Coalition of Progressive Hindus, said, “We are Americans of Hindu faith, many of us Indian, who stand opposed to the ideology of Hindutva and the atrocities against minorities and dissenters being committed in the name of Hinduism. We stand with all the people of India who are calling for an end to this regime that threatens democracy, disregards the dignity and safety of minorities, and has declared war on the poor.”

The BJP has significantly increased corruption and corporate plunder. To distract people from its record of failed governance, the BJP has increased war mongering and is busy dividing the people along communal lines. When Muslims, Dalits, and the Left have resisted or spoken up against the injustice, they have either been imprisoned using draconian laws such as Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. Adivasi (indigenous) people and landless laborers, who have been fighting for land and forest rights, have been arrested and harassed. Workers, who have been struggling against the government’s increased privatization and casualization of work, have been fired or put in prison. With the emboldening of patriarchal forces, in many instances, the attacks on women’s rights and safety have been led by BJP ministers and leaders.

Mohammad Jawad, National General Secretary of Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC), speaking on why IAMC has joined the rally said, “The people of India will eventually recognize the divisive and hatred the current BJP/RSS government is spreading and will unite to preserve our constitution and defeat this government.”

The protestors at the Defense of Democracy rally held placards and shouted slogans such as:

 Ensure Free and Fair Elections! Election Commission must guarantee election free of violence, intimidation, and rigging

 Stop the witch-hunt! Release all UAPA arrestees and drop all charges

 Stop the lynchings of Dalits and Muslims! Arrest and prosecute the perpetrators

 Stop culture of fear! End the attacks and intimidation of activists, artists, workers and women

The demonstration was held in front of the Indian consulate, New York.

Courtesy: Two Circle
 

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The organisers of the Akhil Bharatiya Marathi Sahitya Sammelan have recently withdrawn the invitation to eminent author Nayantara Sahgal, following a threat issued by Maharashtra Navnirman Sena to disturb the event. The author was invited to inaugurate the literary meet along with the Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Devendra Fadnavis, scheduled from 11 to 13 January, 2019, at Yavatmal, Nagpur.

In a press release, Ramakant Kolte, working president of the Literary Meet’s Reception Committee, said that the organisers had “taken cognizance of the threat given by a political outfit” and had cancelled Sahgal’s invitation “to avoid any untoward incident from those threatening to derail the event”. Speaking to the Indian Cultural Forum, Nayantara Sahgal said, “I have no knowledge of why they cancelled my invitation but it’s quite possible that the organisers were under political pressure.”

Protesting the withdrawal of Sahgal’s name from the event and extending solidarity to the eminent author, various Marathi writers have given a call to boycott the upcoming Sammelan.

Responding to this decision, Sahgal said, “The Marathi writers are upset about the cancellation of the invitation and I am very happy that they stood up for me. I thank them for their support and I am very proud of them.”  

Nayantara Sahgal’s name was proposed by the Akhil Bharatiya Marathi Sahitya Sammelan chief, Shreepad Joshi, for the inaugural meet. She was recently accorded with the position of Honorary Vice President of the PEN International. PEN South India and Dakshinayan Abhiyan have also issued a statement in solidarity with the writer and called the entire incident “unfortunate”.

Sahgal received the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1986, for her novel, Rich Like Us (1985).  However, on 6 October 2015, following the murders of rationalists, activists and writers—Govind Pansare, Narendra Dabholkar and M. M. Kalburgi, and the Dadri mob lynching incident— Sahgal returned her Akademi Award as a gesture of protest against increasing intolerance in the nation and in support of the right to dissent.

This is the second time in less than a month that attempts to curb freedom of expression have been made in the state of Maharashtra. On December 12, the Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU), Maharashtra, unilaterally “postponed” the 79^th annual Indian History Congress under political pressure.

Urdu writer and Sahitya Akademi Awardee, Rahman Abbas, has also expressed his disparagement on the committee’s move. Speaking to the Indian Cultural Forum, the writer said, “How could an elected government surrender to a fringe terrorist political outfit? All of us must demand that AIML registers a case against those who have threatened violence. This is not only an effort to silence the author, but also a serious threat to democracy.”

Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum
 

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A week later, then newly elected Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath made a comment about ridding the state of goonda (rogue) elements. “They have the option of leaving UP or else they would land in places designated for them (jails),” he said.

On March 30, Tyagi noted in a Facebook post that the chief minister had 28 cases pending against him, of which 22 were serious.

[Tyagi did not mention the source of his information. Adityanath’s candidate affidavit for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections listed multiple pending criminal cases under a dozen sections. In 2017, MyNeta.Info listed four cases pending against Adityanath, based on his affidavit submitted for election to the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council.]

A few days after making those posts, Tyagi was arrested.

Tyagi was booked under Section 66A of the Information Technology Act (IT Act), a statute that criminalised sending offensive messages online. He was additionally booked under Section 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), because Tyagi had changed his Facebook profile photograph to that of slain sub-inspector, Akhtar Ali, to pay homage to the officer who was killed in an exchange of fire during a raid to arrest a suspected criminal at Dadri, Noida.

Except that Section 66A had been struck down by the Supreme Court in March 2015, two years before it was used by the police against Tyagi, because the top court found the statute too vague to be applied.

How do you decide what is offensive?
“What may be offensive to one may not be offensive to another,” explained the Supreme Court in the landmark judgement (Shreya Singhal v. Union of India) in 2015 that repealed 66A. “What may cause annoyance or inconvenience to one may not cause annoyance or inconvenience to another…. If judicially trained minds can come to diametrically opposite conclusions on the same set of facts it is obvious that expressions such as “grossly offensive” or “menacing” are so vague that there is no manageable standard by which a person can be said to have committed an offence or not to have committed an offence.”

So, how could Tyagi have been booked under an overruled statute?
Was the use of Section 66A by the police an outcome of ignorance of the law, or was the police knowingly challenging the legitimacy of the Supreme Court ruling that overturned it?
The answer is a bit of both, according to a new paper ‘Section 66A and other legal zombies’ by lawyers Abhinav Sekhri and Apar Gupta.

“There is no system in place to give proper effect to the decisions of the Supreme Court of such significant import,” co-author Gupta, also executive director of the Internet Freedom Foundation, told IndiaSpend.  “There exists a lack of mutual respect between the judiciary and executive, and the power balance skewed in favour of the executive allows it to get away with the abuse of the law.”

Gupta noted that it is important to understand that courts do not strike down laws on the mere possibility of misuse. “Judicial review of substantive penal legislation is a rare event, not because the legislature always comes up with bulletproof choices on what to criminalise and how to do so, but rather because of a convention that courts cannot continually question the legislative choices in that arena. Courts try to maintain a balance of powers between the branches of state — the executive, judiciary and legislature — by abstaining from interfering in or negating law-making.
Besides, imagine how challenging law enforcement would become if the validity of the law itself were forever in doubt?”

In the case of Section 66A, the Supreme Court ruled that the law violated Article 14, providing for equality before the law, Article 19, which includes freedom of speech and expression, and Article 21, or right to life and personal liberty, all constitutional Fundamental Rights, said Gupta.
Respecting the position of other branches of the State would assume that when the judiciary does engage in that rare act of review, its decision is scrupulously honoured. Clearly, that hasn’t happened. The struck-down statute Section 66A, and other scrapped sections such as Section 303, IPC continue to be used, according to Sekhri and Gupta.

Gupta told IndiaSpend that this effectively puts the onus of enforcing the apex court’s ruling on existing defendants and those newly booked under the now defunct section.

Edited excerpts from an interview:
Citing the example of Zakir Ali Tyagi, who spent 42 days in jail after being booked under Section 66A of the IT Act and Section 420, IPC, you concluded that due to “considerable mainstream media coverage by national newspapers”, “the likelihood of the police discovering the error of continued used of Section 66A would have become apparent,” and the allegations under Section 66A were converted to Section 66. Once Tyagi was released on bail, the police added the offence of sedition. Is this switching of sections reflective of ignorance of the law?
Dropping an alphabet did not impart greater legality to Zakir Ali Tyagi’s case, since Section 66 and Section 66A are vastly different. The former deals with hacking and monetary losses; the latter deals with offences of speech, and can be contracted and expanded like an accordion. What often happens is that the police first arrest someone under 66A, then, if the case gets media attention, they find out about the invalidity of the statute and look for another section to justify the arrest. Incidentally, Tyagi’s case is still ongoing.
Since the National Crimes Record Bureau (NCRB) stopped recording Section 66A cases in 2016, we found an increased incidence of the use of Section 66 (computer-related offences) and Section 67 (transmitting obscene material in electronic form), despite the legal objective of sections 66 and 67 being distinct from Section 66A. It is possible that these provisions are serving as mere proxies for a continued reliance on Section 66A, suggesting that Shreya Singhal affected only form and not substance. A research report released in November 2017 by the Mumbai-based not-for-profit Point of View inquires if Section 67 is being used as a substitute for Section 66A.

Equally disturbing was our discovery that this issue of ignorance of the law, and hence, the application of unconstitutional penal laws, long preceded Shreya Singhal and Section 66A. In 1983, the Supreme Court had struck down Section 303, IPC [which mandated a death sentence for murder if committed by a person convicted for life imprisonment], in Mithu v. State of Punjab. In 2012, almost two decades later, the Rajasthan High Court intervened to save a person from being hanged for being convicted under that offence by a Sessions Judge.

You concluded that Section 66A continues to be used because the pertinent authorities simply do not know that it has been struck down, because no method exists for getting word of Supreme Court decisions to other stakeholders, such as the lowest rungs of the criminal justice system. What solution do you propose for this situation?
Allow me to digress to say that we concluded that Section 66A continues to be used because the pertinent authorities do not know that it has been struck down, simply because we could not assume that the police, prosecutors and courts are actively committing contempt by refusing to stop cases under Section 66A, or that they see the decision as not requiring them to act to offer relief to defendants of pending cases. That said, we found it fairly plausible that authorities don’t know about the decision on Section 66A, because when a law is declared unconstitutional, it is not automatically deleted from the statute books. Statutes can only be changed via an amendment, and if parliament does not pass an enabling amendment to give effect to the Supreme Court decision, then the unconstitutional provision will remain in the text. So, if one accesses India Code—the official source for the text of central statutes—Section 66A still exists. Commercial publishers such as Universal, LexisNexis and Commercial that are required to faithfully reproduce the official text of statutes also carry unconstitutional provisions, often with a footnote citing the Supreme Court decision.

How else could the lower courts and police force get to know that Section 66A had been struck down? Through the government’s official gazette, which carries updates on new legislation or rules? It doesn’t carry details of recent judicial decisions of constitutional import. Through government advisories or notifications? While an advisory was issued to chief secretaries and director generals during the litigation asking them to use Section 66A with restraint and prior approval of their administrative superiors, no advisory or notification was addressed to the same set of persons informing them about the decision itself.

High Court Rules (we studied the Delhi High Court provisions) don’t allow for decisions of the Supreme Court to be conveyed to the lower courts under its jurisdiction. Similarly, there is no rule mandating district judges to issue circulars for bringing new Supreme Court decisions to the notice of other officers. To get information about important decisions, members of the subordinate judiciary are expected to refer to yearly digests published by the judiciary or similar digests published by commercial houses.

What impact should scrapping Section 66A have had on the people of India and its judicial system? How does that continued application of the unconstitutional statute impact persons booked under Section 66A?
When an important decision like Shreya Singhal was passed, you would have imagined that prosecuting agencies and magistrates across the country would proactively give effect to the ruling, by examining pending cases and withdrawing those where the defendant was booked solely under Section 66A. In doing so, they would effectively reduce the burden on the criminal justice system, which we all know is besieged with the lack of policing resources and pending cases.

As we found, this did not happen. Far from it. The police continued to book people under the scrapped law (and they continue to do so; this recent case happened in Gurugram and this case in Guwahati), in doing so placing the burden of enforcing legal change on newly booked and existing defendants. What we mean by this is most defendants depend on their lawyers to navigate the legal system. So, if the lawyer is aware of the rollback of Section 66A and capable of explaining the illegality to the court, good for the defendant. If not, the defendant would needlessly suffer. We found proof of this, in the fact that Shreya Singhal was used to quash only some of the 66A cases pending before the same presiding officer in the Kerala High Court. Where the lawyer did not claim the invalidity, the courts simply went on with the case as if Section 66A was valid. In India, how many defendants have the financial wherewithal to engage the best lawyers who offer quality counsel? Those who lack these means are left hopelessly beyond the Constitution. This is their justice.

What data formed the basis of your study? To what extent is that data indicative of the total section 66A cases being registered in the country?
We searched two online databases for Section 66A cases—IndianKanoon, a popular public access platform, and Supreme Court Cases Online, a subscription-based platform. Between January and September 2018, IndianKanoon listed 45 cases, while Supreme Court Cases Online listed 21 cases from March 2015 till September 2018.

These were by no means exhaustive lists. These databases crawl the internet and index information. We know that they primarily index high court cases and collect data from the few district courts that are digitised. A main source of data—crimes registered through First Information Reports (FIR) in police stations—remains wholly outside the scope of these databases. Also, we are not clear which cases they omit since their algorithms and documentation are not made public. Incidentally, Tyagi’s case was not listed.

We also referred to cyber crimes reported by the NCRB, which collates data sourced from police stations. NCRB data for 2015 and 2016 showed that widespread arrests continued despite Shreya Singhal. However, the NCRB issued a “corrigenda” in 2016 clarifying that those numbers were incorrect due to an error in the internal data processing system, and also said that it will not publish data on Section 66A in subsequent reports.

Because of these data limitations, we limited our study to examining the general continued use of Section 66A in the criminal process. In many instances this includes FIRs filed after the Shreya Singhal judgment and trials that are proceeding as on date. Having read each order in our data set, we can confidently assert the usefulness of our data set as a tool for analysis and evidence of the continued misuse of a scrapped statute. What could be more revealing than this comment of a police inspector in Ahmedabad on being asked why he booked a lawyer-activist working for minority rights under the scrapped Section 66A in August 2018? The inspector first said that the top court did not give any such judgement, then later said, “The Supreme Court must have said that in one particular case only and the section remains in the Act. Pathan was aptly booked under Section 66A of the act as he circulated messages through a cellphone.”

(Bahri is a freelance writer and editor based in Mount Abu, Rajasthan.)

Courtesy: India Spend
 

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T. Velmurugan
 
Tamil Nadu: Several political leaders and frontline activists of people’s movements and political parties are being arrested, incarcerated and persecuted in Tamil Nadu by the state police. It is widely suspected that the central government in Delhi is guiding the Tamil Nadu government and police in these operations.

On May 25, 2018, T. Velmurugan, the founding president of the Tamizhaka Vaazhvurimai Katchi (Tamil Nadu’s ‘Right to Life’ Party), was arrested at the Thoothukudi airport on his way to meet and console the families of the massacre victims in the anti-Sterlite protest. All different leaders had been visiting the city on a regular basis to do just that and Velmurugan intended to do the same. After all, he has served as an MLA twice in the past and is a known figure in Tamil politics.
 
“On May 26, Velmurugan visited the violence-hit Thoothukudi district. He was arrested by the Neyveli police at Thoothukudi airport and remanded to judicial custody at Puzhal prison. Velmurugan was vociferous against the Centre and state on issues like Cauvery water management and permanent job for localities in Neyveli Lignite Corporation. His outfit also took part in the anti-Sterlite protests,” reported Deccan Chronicle on May 31.
 
“The Neyveli Thermal Police have booked a case under Sections 124 A (whoever by words either spoken or written or by signs or by visual representation or otherwise brings or attempts to bring in contempt or hatred), 153 (wantonly giving provocation with intent to cause riot, promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth) and 505 (II) (b) – with intent to cause or which is likely to cause fear or alarm to the public. A warrant has been issued,” reported The Hindu.
 
“Mr. Velmurugan is presently undergoing treatment at the Government Stanley Hospital in Chennai where he was admitted for health complications developed during his recent imprisonment at the Puzhal Central Prison,” the report added.

He and nine others were kept overnight in a dilapidated hall without food, water or toilet facilities. The hall was locked on the front and at the back and no one (including lawyers, doctors, journalists or friends) was allowed to see Velmurugan and the other detainees. The police were lathi charging those who approached the hall. The arrested were taken to the Chennai central prison in northern Tamil Nadu without even a chance to take a break or to urinate on the way. All this amounts to gross human rights violations.
 
Various political parties such as the MDMK, the DMK, the VCK, the Manithaneya Makkal Katchi, the TNCC, the CPI and the CPM came together to protest against the arrest of Tamilaga Valvurimai Katchi leader T. Velmurugan before the Chennai Collectorate on Tuesday.

Earlier, two youngsters Idumbavanam Karthi and Kadal Deepan, both Naam Tamizhar Katchi (We Tamils Party) workers, were arrested under various charges and incarcerated in the central prison in Chennai. Similarly, Viennarasu, the state coordinator of the Naam Tamizhar Katchi (We Tamils Party,) was also arrested under a false charge that he had instigated arson in the May 22nd Thoothukudi protest and imprisoned.

K. M. Shariff, the president of Tamizhaga Makkal Jananaayaka Katchi (Tamil People’s Democratic Party) was arrested along with his friends on June 5 when he tried to blockade actor Rajnikanth’s house in Chennai. Usually, the police would arrest such protestors and let them go in the evening but this time they remanded Shariff and his comrades and sent them to prison.

Two other leading activists, Thirumurugan Gandhi of May 17 Movement and Dyson of Tamizhaga Vidiyal Katchi (Tamil Nadu Dawn Party), had been arrested a few months back under the goondas act and they came out on bail.

There are rumours now that the state police have prepared a list of several movement leaders, political personalities and frontline activists to be detained over the next few weeks and months. The people’s right to assemble, right to oppose a dangerous project that spoils the local land, water, air and the health of the people and their right to protest peacefully are all being systematically violated by the authorities.

In the light of the above situation, the Pachai Tamizhagam Katchi demanded that all of the above leaders and workers be released immediately and unconditionally. All the false and concocted charges against them must be dropped. The fundamental human rights and entitlements of the people of Tamil Nadu must be respected and protected.

Written and forwarded in most part by SP Udaykumar, Pachai Tamizhagam Katchi (Green Tamil Nadu Party.)

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Vadlamudi’s cartoon, which was published on her Facebook and Twitter pages on April 10 and 11, shows the Hindu gods Ram and Sita discussing “the issue of abduction and violence against women in India. The message in the cartoon does not in any way insult Sita or Ram; instead it poses a question to the public,” the statement says. 

The NWMI has noted that since April 10, Vadlamudi has been targeted with “online abuse by Hindutva groups, where some users have threatened that she will meet the same fate as Gauri Lankesh and the murdered cartoonists of the Charlie Hebdo magazine in France,” adding that the Hindu Sanghatan has also filed charges against Times NOW Chennai Deputy Editor Shabbir Ahmed, who shared Vadlamudi’s cartoon on Twitter. According to the NWMI, another cartoonist, Satish Acharya, has also received abuse and death threats. 

The statement has highlighted that Vadlamudi’s cartoon has been shared at least 8,000 times on Facebook, and received several thousand ‘likes’, a clearly indication that it “touched a chord among the Indian public which in the recent past has seen abductions, brutal gang-rapes and murders of women and children in different parts of the country, from Kathua in Jammu and Kashmir to Unnao in Uttar Pradesh, Surat in Gujarat and elsewhere.” NWMI has stressed the significance of cartoons in the news media, saying they “hold a mirror to the current world in a particularly effective manner that goes beyond what is captured by words (spoken or written), photographs or videos. In a vibrant democracy such an art and the artists who create it should be encouraged to thrive instead of being stifled by hate groups.” 

The NWMI has demanded that the Hyderabad Police should immediately drop all charges against Vadlamudi, Ahmed, and any other individuals against whom cases have been filed in this context. Moreover, it has called on the police to take “prompt action” against anyone abusing Vadlamudi, Ahmed, Acharya, and others. The organisation has also urged the Editors’ Guild of India and the Press Council of India to take suo moto cognisance of such attacks on media professionals, particularly women, and called on them to “come out strongly” to support and defend anyone being attacked. 

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Image Courtesy: Scroll.in

In a statement issued today, the NWMI states, :According to News18’s Emmy C Lawbei, who was injured in the incident,  the police started raining blows on them when a heated exchange took place at the spot where protesters had gathered. She remembers that the police did not stop even when they were informed that Emmy and others present were journalists.

“I screamed and said I’m a journalist but they keep beating us. I felt a sharp pain on my butt, back and my arms. Police also opened fire and I was so scared, I started running back towards the car,” Emmy is reported as saying. She saw another woman colleague running towards the car and she followed her. “Police keep chasing, screaming and beating us. No matter how many times I shouted I’m a journalist, they turned a deaf ear. I also saw another reporter getting hit on his head, he lost his glasses and ran towards safe area. Another Reporter from Kolasib also got injured,” says Emmy.
“Attacks on journalists in the Northeast have become dangerously routine. Last year, two journalists from Tripura were killed. Santanu Bhowmik was hacked to death by a mob during clashes between two political parties in September last year. Two months later, journalist Sudip Datta Bhaumik was shot dead inside a Tripura State Rifles premises by a security guard. In Assam alone, 32 journalists have been killed in the last 30 years alone. In almost all cases, perpetrators have not faced any consequence, and it was only last year, that the Assam government gave out a compensation of Rs 5 lakhs.
 
“Women journalists in the state have often faced physical attacks in the hands of policemen.  
 
“Violence of any nature should have no space in a functional democracy. The law and order machinery must not resort to violence as the first response to citizens exercising their fundamental right to protest. Violence directed at journalists trying to do their legitimate work in such situations points to a complete disregard for freedom of expression in general and media freedom in particular that are essential to the proper functioning of a democracy.
 
The NWMI has condemned the attack, and demands that the Assam government not only initiate an inquiry into the matter but take action against the erring policemen and make it clear that such violent behaviour will not be tolerated in the future.   
 
 

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Demonstration against PRISM in Berlin, organized by the Pirate Party, during United States president Barack Obama’s visit. Mike Herbst/Wikimedia Commons. Some rights reserved.

For some years now, we have been witnessing the emergence of relational, cross-over, participative power. This is the territory that gives technopolitics its meaning and prominence, the basis on which a new vision of democracy – more open, more direct, more interactive – is being developed and embraced. It is a framework that overcomes the closed architecture on which the praxis of governance (closed, hierarchical, one-way) have been cemented in almost all areas. The series The ecosystem of open democracy explores the different aspects of this ongoing transformation.

Freedom of expression is one of the pillars of modern democracy, and the right to the privacy of our communications is a part of it. During the last century it was said that, in some dictatorships, they opened letters with steam – so that the peeping could go unnoticed -, they read the contents – to detect divergent thinking -, they closed the envelopes again, and let the letters reach their addressees – to avoid suspicions.

Today, when we send a message from the simulated intimacy our electronic devices give us, it is traced by a complex communication intercepting system. The root cause of the problem is this: the internet is a network designed for sharing information which, at the time it was created, was not intended for its current use – nor was the problem of privacy taken into account.

The problem is bigger than we can possibly measure. Whenever we connect to a website that does not have https – when a little padlock appears in our url – all the interactions we make are clear. This means that anyone who is viewing our connection – which goes through several intermediate servers – can read everything we write – passwords, emails, attachments – in addition to the url we are visiting.

When we talk about virtual communications, e-mail and messaging apps, the issue becomes even more complex. Gmail and Hotmail, the two most common providers, know all the content of all the emails we store with them. WhatsApp has been encrypted since April 2016 – but messages only. Telegram uses other encryption versions, and traditional SMS are not encrypted. In short: it is very easy to spy on us.

Massive spying
The internet design has always been the problem, but not even the most paranoid hacker in the world would have imagined the terrifying picture Snowden introduced us to in June 2013. The Five Eyes Alliance – the US, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the UK – spies on all internet users on a consistent, systematic and cumulative basis. Not a minor detail is the fact that the US invented the internet in the first place, and that it is the country that controls it the most.

Yahoo gave the National Security Agency (NSA), the US agency dedicated to digital espionage, full access to all its users’ emails. Google responded to the NSA’s requests but did not give them full access, and since the NSA deemed it insufficient, it chose to illegally enter Google’s servers and check the information anyway. No Internet company is free from these pressures.

Your electronic devices spy on you. It is not only Wikileaks that says so, but a US court: your SmartTV spies on you without asking for your consent. It not only records everything you are watching, but even when it is not on it can record and share your private conversations. The same thing happens when we activate our cell phone’s voice control: it listens to us.

All these data are being processed with the aim of spying on us massively. In this process, metadata are crucially important. Metadata are the data which describe the data: date of creation, modifications, size, format, GPS coordinates, among others. It is on the basis of this information that behaviours can be determined which the agencies analyze so as to gauge the degree of surveillance they need to apply to us.

Ads on the internet work in a similar way: how many times, after seeing a particular product on some web, does not this product chase us through ads on the other websites we visit? This is only advertising; just imagine what spy agencies can do. Think about what might happen if, by any chance, you have the misfortune to coincide twice in the same site as a person who is under government surveillance.

Programs to infect
Digital espionage is not only massive, it is also customized. The Five Eyes Alliance has been spying on government leaders like Angela Merkel, internet tycoons like Kim Dotcom, and has become so pervasive that even Donald Trump dares to be frivolous about it.

You can spy on a device in many different ways and to different effects: capturing everything written, sending all the actions you perform while browsing, accessing all your WhatsApp messages, using the webcam and the microphone unnoticed – among many others. The problem is so real that even Mark Zuckerberg and James Comey – director of Facebook and the FBI respectively – taped their laptop webcam as an anti-espionage measure.

There are companies like Hacking Team that sell spyware and their main clients are governments. Their exploits – i.e. programs for taking control over a computer – can be attached to a Word file and take control of your Mac or PC unnoticed, when the file is opened. Among Hacking Team’s top customers: the governments of Mexico, Italy, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Chile.

But you do not have to be a government: a simple internet search can offer you some very advanced program licenses at a small cost – about 50 USD dollars. The slogan of one of the most popular of these programs is: “If you are in a committed relationship, have children, or manage employees, you have the right to know! Discover the truth, spy on their cell phone.

The importance of privacy
“Arguing that you do not care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is like saying you do not care about freedom of speech because you have nothing to say”, Edward Snowden famously said in a debate on Reddit in 2015. There is nothing better than putting oneself in his position as a whistleblower to understand what is to be done.

Due the complexity of modern society, it is very often individuals with no media connections who get to know about some malpractice, a case of corruption, or a violation of human rights. Probably, their access to this information comes from knowledge picked up at their workplace, or at an organization they belong to, or the place where they live. If they publicly denounce this situation, it is quite likely that their way of life will be severely affected. In many cases, even if they denounce the fact anonymously, the accused may deduce the source.
Every society needs its citizens to denounce acts which harm and corrupt the community. But it must protect those who, through an act of courage, put themselves at risk by denouncing corruption, malpractices, or violations of human rights. This protection must be offered by both civil society and the state – through specific legislation protecting and encouraging whistleblowing.

In most Latin American countries there is no protection available for whistleblowers, nor is there an agency that protects officials who report malpractices within the public sector. This being so, and while we keep on waiting for protection mechanisms to be set up, civil society must propose measures so that people can report anonymously and safely. This can only be achieved with encryption.

If you do not have the key, it is not safe
In the physical space, when we want to keep something safe, we put it under lock and key. No one would ever think that a keyless door is safe. In the digital world you have to ask the same question: who has the key?

The first service to doubt is WhatsApp. They tell us they encrypt everything, but we do not have the key. We do not even have to put a password to generate it: from our number, the messaging service itself generates a key – which, of course, it controls. Messages are encrypted, but whenever WhatsApp (or its owner, Facebook) wants to, it can read them. The same happens with any other service that we do not have a password for.

The most common system for encrypting communications is PGP, which literally means “Pretty Good Privacy”. It works with a public key system, which you share with everyone else, and a private key, which you are the only one to have. When someone wants to send you a message, they cipher it with your public key and you are the only one who can decipher it with your private key. The equivalent in the physical world would be to distribute open padlocks which, once closed, you are the only one who can open them.

Encrypting is the only way to keep communications and files private. If you have to send a message that you do not want to be tracked, forget about messaging and use PGP mail. Even better: use your own servers or non-intrusive services like riseup.net. For more information on this, check Tactical Tech’s Security in a Box manuals.
Arguing that you do not care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is like saying you do not care about freedom of speech because you have nothing to say.

The future of communications
There is currently considerable tension between encryption and national security, and the national security theses have the upper hand. In 2014, the most heavily used and robust encryption program was discontinued for no apparent reason. In 2015, a judge in Spain considered the use of Riseup and encryption in private communications an aggravated circumstance. In 2016, the FBI admitted that it could break the iPhone encryption, and refused to share its finding with Apple.

These are just three examples, and we could go dig much deeper, but in the end we have to accept reality: our communications are becoming increasingly insecure. It is a global problem, which the non-politicized citizen has, and so does any activist, journalist, businessman, policeman or whistleblower. We are all on the same boat.

In order to change this trend and allow for safer communications, our governments should start promoting and distributing free software tools. This is the path that cities like Munich have begun to follow which, in the long run, will help them to break free from the big multinational corporations and  become self-sufficient in information technology and information management in a democratic context. Just think about this: in order to govern your country, all your MPs are using software that is owned and controlled by US companies – and yes, you can be sure that they are listening to them too.

Eduard Martín-Borregón is a data journalist who specializes in digital security. He is currently Coordinator of Technologies for Transparency at PODER, an organization that co-founded Méxicoleaks and Perúleaks, and promotes the creation of new anonymous and safe whistleblowing platforms in the region.

Courtesy: https://www.opendemocracy.net
 

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Or say, Protest.

The protest is the only strong weapon available to an ordinary individual when faced with injustice. Living is a protest against death and death is a protest against life. Our whole existence today has become a protest. Protest makes us realize who we really are and what we stand for.

Unfortunately, though we are turning into zombies who have learned to be silent even at the most crucial of junctures in our community life; out of fear, apathy or plain laziness. It’s also true that one man’s protest is another man’s conquest.

Are we allowing our oppressor this conquest, born out of our silence and inaction?

But what are the best ways to protest? Would we be successful? Would our protests achieve the desired goals?

Some questions are without any fixed answers.

Once upon a time, protests meant boycotts, morchas and marches, moun vrats, fasts, sloganeering, Rasta-roko, Jail-bharo or at the least tying black bands on your arms. After being blessed with ‘Ache Din’; singing a song, watching a film, reading a book, sharing a meme, painting your nails and eating beef (if you are brave) have become ‘kind’ of protests. Colin Kaepernick’s ‘Take a Knee’ has sent shivers down the spine of Trumpistan. Not a day passes when people don’t protest. But do they succeed in making a difference? In the din of 100+ protests a day, let’s try seeing what could be the intrigues of a genuine protest.

Coming on the streets to show dissent; in our parts of the world, the sub-continent, was always precarious. Mahatma Gandhi did it. Jinnah did it. We have been doing it too. But the price we paid was heavy.

Mahatma had his share of regrets. Nirad Chaudhury in his, Thy Hand Great Anarch! India 1921-51; writes about this;

“During all these movements the people acted in their own way without paying any heed to his (Gandhi’s) admonitions about non-violence and abjuration of hatred. Nobody was more aware of this than Gandhi himself. Once at least he spoke of his Himalayan blunder.( 1988: 878)”

Fast unto death was Mahatma Gandhi’s way of trying to make the British kneel to his demands. Interestingly, Nirad Chaudhury who could never resist an opportunity to make a critique of Mahatma’s ways; in one of his tomes also describes that whenever he used to declare one of his fasts unto death, people would rather anticipate his martyrdom, and when this didn’t happen, felt disappointed.

But you must agree you need to be driven, strong-willed and truly determined an individual for carrying out FUD. Barring some respectable and truthful exceptions, FUDs have transformed into fasting in a cycle. Mahesh will do it on a Wednesday, Anil on a Thursday, Fridays for the next in line. It’s modern-day FUD.

Effective? Yes, from morning till evening.

So which is the best form of making and registering a protest?

After seventy years, things have changed. Protests however genuine in their old format are not fetching results, barring a few instances. The big issue today is what should constitute as a protest; that is thought to bring some change, some positive results, or at least succeeds in attracting some good attention? Painting your nails, posting a selfie with Tajmahal in the background, singing a song and etc, can bring attention and a spark to the issue briefly until we get hit on by the next.

In the long run, however, for a sound solution, we need to rise above this.

NDTV journalist Srinivasan Jain in a Facebook post, after journalist Gauri Lankesh murder writes;
I stand, like most of my tribe, in full solidarity with the protests. Have been to several of them as well. But seriously – what end does it serve, beyond solidarity? Do we think that powers that be will be moved by vaguely worded demands for justice, or sloganeering that we will not be silenced? As long as the protests remain at the Press Club, and in *no way* reflect in our journalism, the answer is no. Power does not care about protests. Power will only take note if we snap out of business as usual mode.

Protests in their old usual static form no longer work, he feels. Later in the post he writes generating finance for fighting the cases against the journalists, for setting up unbiased non-prejudiced media forums have become a must.

Wise words.

Yes, we have issues, we may have tremendous amounts of anger over our grievances, even over a cartoon, but if we give in to the temptation of taking ‘this’ as a license to take to the streets, then we are committing hara-kiri.

Remember a cartoon for a cartoon, a poem for a poem, a book for a book. This is the fitting response.

Demonstrations on the road are necessary but these have no ‘Chhoo-Mantar’ solutions for our problems. These congregations can be good indicators of public anger but often don’t move beyond that. Sheer apathy, arrogance and cold nonchalance from the quarters that hold power, induces a feeling of extreme helplessness among the noble crusaders who feel they can ‘still’ bring a change. Hope is eternal.

We all develop defence mechanisms to ignore and adjust with small or big injustices in our lives. But a point comes when we protest.

It is the hallmark of a living being; of one who is truly living and respects his and reality and rights of others. Today our whole human existence radiates from injustice. Look around, and you might know what I mean.

Also, protesting about an injustice automatically translates into a protest against all such injustices. Some intellectuals say Indian Muslims need not worry about the Israeli occupation of Palestine. This can be problematic. Who would feel my pain if I don’t correspond in the same currency? How can we expect support for our murders in pogroms, riots and lynchings, if we are immune to the pain of others?

Palestine is the mother of all protests. One who protests the occupation the genocide and oppression of innocent people in a given country sends a message that he/she opposes such acts of violence everywhere else.

Confronting the problem and the oppressor are important. After a symbolic dharna, sit out and memorandums one can try focusing the attention towards ‘Capacity Building’. When you are a minority and have issues that can fill a train, you can’t afford to sit on the platform of dharnas all through the year; instead, you become pragmatic and do something that would prove to be valuable in the long run.

Long candlelight vigils, sit outs, shout outs, standouts, have their own significance and place but can we also think and plan on working for those same hours alongside? This can be done on our own or on some planned collective projects(Like helping to clean our locality, lending a hand for constructive building projects, teaching kids using your special knowledge, working with elders or people with disabilities etc) and contribute the earnings for the good cause for which the protest is happening. This can help for the rehabilitation of the victims and or any legal expenses involved.

Normally we get busy in our own lives, after rightly standing for hours, for a cause, for a day or two, but in the end, what matters is, ensuring justice for the victims of abuse, violence or unfairness in as practical a way as possible. We know well justice doesn’t come easy and certainly is not a low-priced commodity.

What would you prefer standing or shouting slogans nonstop for three hours or working for a reimbursement for those same three hours; where you give away, your hard earned money towards the cause you are holding close to your heart?
This is doing something concrete and contributing to bring some real change.

The second option is definitely a practical one and even though no positive results for justice are guaranteed; you have done your thing. You have that elusive precious satisfaction of doing something ‘substantial’. Coming together of people, knowing and working with each other fosters harmony and opens new avenues for future collaborations. The camaraderie, sense of being connected and the bonhomie can work wonders for our community spirit.

Malcolm X that rare maverick had ‘detonated’ the famous Washington March of 1964 by terming it a ‘Master Lesson’ about how a movement gets weakened by forces opposed to your cause. In his usual and brutal style, he called it a circus, an outing, a picnic. We don’t need to agree with him but the bullets he draws against ‘The Farce in Washington’ are thoughts to provoke.

The point worth ten billions is ,if we are facing hundreds of issues on a daily basis, if we understand the” Perils of Protest” on an Indian street [especially for the vulnerable groups of the society] , if we understand the frustrating futility of being ‘on the road’ where the only purpose being served is just that,i.e. ‘Being on the Road’; then sooner or later a time comes to think about the most constructive thing for helping and advancing our cause. What is better, loitering for long hours on and around the roads, shouting or silent and feeling frustrated at the same time? Or working on a well-planned project or on our own, towards the set goal of Capacity Building that also helps to instil and reviving our lost Community spirit?

We don’t have heroes among ourselves, who with their symbolic protest send a powerful message across. But we can hope to build our own variety through our coming together in positive and fruitful ways of Capacity Building and Community Sharing and send our Protests to whomsoever it concerns, in the most meaningful way.

The author is based in Maharashtra and has written for various prestigious national and international publications and websites on social, ethical, and gender-related issues.

Courtesy: Two Circles
 

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Digital security expert Ramy Raoof. Image: CELS. Some rights reserved.

Ramy Raoof is a digital security expert bent on helping activists, journalists and others to protect their privacy, and he has won international awards for his efforts. He serves as senior research technologist at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), a member of the International Network of Civil Liberties Organizations (INCLO), which prioritises work on informational rights as well as police brutality and social protest.

Ramy has extensive experience in the Middle East and North Africa, and in recent months he has been sharing his knowledge with organisations in Latin America. He has seen firsthand how Egyptian officials use the information they collect through surveillance to harass and smear people working at NGOs. This crackdown on activists, which has intensified since 2013, seeks to silence dissent and diverse viewpoints. But Ramy says Egypt is far from alone in its murky use of state surveillance: the problem is global.
 

CELS: How does the use of surveillance technologies serve to chill the right to protest?

Ramy Raoof (RR): The way (states) are using surveillance is to limit people’s ability to organise. And people organise through different means: it could be through mobile apps or websites, with different tools ranging from Facebook and WhatsApp to Signal and Telegram and other ways. And then the adversary deploys surveillance to monitor people – not to ban them, but to know what they are going to do and then disrupt this action in some way.

They create this sense of fear that your emails and communications and everything are under surveillance

They think through surveillance they will disrupt people’s ability to organise and speak freely. So when there is a group of people trying to organise a protest or a demonstration or a sit-in or a march, or any form of assembly in a public space, the main way to make it ineffective is by monitoring people’s lives and then making an example of one of them.

How do they do this?

RR: When they make arrests, they will say: we have seen them planning this over email, or we have seen some Facebook activity about this. They create this sense of fear that your emails and communications and everything are under surveillance, even if it’s not true, but they just keep saying it so people will believe it.

When the adversary starts to attack the leaders of the community, or certain specific prominent figures, it’s basically to send a negative message to the others: we know what you are doing, we can see what you are doing, and we will punish you.

The whole idea is that they are trying to make people think twice before taking to the streets. And that’s why in some countries they not only deploy surveillance, they also make public assemblies illegal. So doing a protest, a march, a demonstration, a call for protest in itself is an illegal act and it’s complemented by surveillance.
 

In Egypt, how does the government justify its surveillance?

RR: One of the few times they had to speak publicly, when we were doing campaigns and research and publications against this, they went from not commenting, to denying, to admitting it’s happening, and then using the same international arguments used by different countries to justify this, most famously fighting terrorism: “It’s only used against the bad guys, you have nothing to hide.”

They have also said “we are following the lead of the UK and US, we want to be like democratic countries so we are doing this.” And at that time David Cameron was calling to block social media, so the guys in Egypt were super happy because (they thought) “OK, it’s coming from the UK, we’re also going to do the same, we will follow his steps.”

We cannot have an informed discussion and share knowledge and critique ourselves if we feel we are always being watched
 

Who is actually being monitored by states?

RR: When we look at the people who are under surveillance, they are not the most criminal or dangerous people. They are just normal people: they could be activists, artists, lawyers, university teachers, people who teach kids, they could be restaurants, coffee shops, it could be anyone.

So the assumption that (states) would only monitor specific profiles or specific kinds of people – that was true many, many years ago, but now we are seeing the scope of the mass surveillance going on, and they are just after everyone’s personal life. 

We cannot have an informed discussion and share knowledge and critique ourselves if we feel we are always being watched. This means we don’t really have privacy to freely think and speak and discuss different topics without any interference or predetermined answers.
 

What can activists do to protect themselves?

RR: Since they are using surveillance to disrupt people’s ability to organise, people can fight back by adopting and advocating for free and open encryption because it will disrupt their surveillance ecosystem.

Across all countries and all intelligence agencies, they really hate encryption because it doesn’t allow them to see what they would like to see, and they would like to see everything, anytime, without restrictions, without permissions, without due process, without justification, without oversight. And encryption disrupts that.

That’s why encryption is very crucial to a healthier society in an open and free manner, because it’s our enabling mechanism towards private communication.

CELS is an Argentine human rights organisation with a broad agenda that includes defending the right to protest.

Courtesy: Open Democracy

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To
The Chief Minister
Kerala
 
Dear Mr. Pinarayi Vijayan

We write to you as individuals and organizations who are part of the women’s movement to express our outrage and concern regarding the dangerous implications of Hadiya’s continued isolation and imprisonment in her parental home. We are aware of the positive step that the State Women’s Commission has taken through filing an SLP in the Supreme Court regarding seeking directions from the bench for a meeting with Hadiya as part of its duty as an institution mandated to ensure that women are not subjected to unfair practices and denial of their civil rights.

We welcome the Supreme Court’s decision to examine the High Court order vis a vis use of Article 226 to declare Hadiya’s marriage as invalid. We also appreciate the Honorable Courts’ decision to relook at the issue of ‘protection’ for Hadiya outside of her family. These are a recognition of the serious nature of violations that have impacted her liberty and freedom as an individual.

As women’s rights activists from across the country, we urge you as the Chief Minister to take steps to ensure that Hadiya is not forcibly confined in the home of her natal family, denied the right to cohabit with her husband, and be subjected to coercion for exercising opting for faith of her choice.  It is alarming to have an adult woman today to be ordered into “protective custody” of her parent’s home under the orders of a Court, denied mobility, communication and the company of her friends and well-wishers. Reports of domestic violence at the hands of her family, which if true, is a travesty that places upon your Women’s Commission the duty of initiating an inquiry.  This situation cannot be ignored or allowed to continue.

As you well know, the issue is not about what her family, religious extremist organizations – whether Hindu or Muslim, or even we in the women’s movement, think of her choice of partner. The fact is that she is an adult and that she has the autonomy and the fundamental right to make choices regarding her work, her religion and her partner.

We appreciate and support the efforts of all activists and women’s organisations in Kerala, and we are conveying our concern and sharing some suggestions emerging from our discussions.

-The State Women’s Commission of Kerala immediately visit Hadiya to assess the nature of human rights violations that she is facing.

-The Kerala SWC assess and make public a report on Hadiya’s condition.

-Hadiya be brought under the protection of the State, perhaps in a shelter in consultation with her.

-The Kerala SWC and the LDF government must immediately ensure that friends and well-wishers be allowed to meet Hadiya and that she is allowed access to a phone and communication beyond the walls of her parental home.

We urge you to intensify the efforts that you are already making towards action on her virtual house arrest.

Nandini Sundar
Tanika Sarkar
Kalyani Menon Sen
Mary John
Uma Chakravarti
Abha Bhaiya
Virginia Saldanah
Urvashi Butalia
Malika Virdhi
Deepa Dhanraj
Disha Mullick
Uma. V. Chandru
Purnima Gupta
Arunima
Farah Naqvi
Pramada Menon
Chaitali Haldar
Rohini Hensman
Ayesha Kidwai
Lalitha Ramdas
Susie Tharu
Madhu Mehra
Jaya Sharma
Dipta Bhog
Panchali Ray
Madhavi Kukreja
Brinda Bose
Vimala Ramachandran
Johanna Lokhande
Dyuti
LABIA –A Queer Feminist Collective
Bindu Menon
Svati Joshi
Saheli
Shahira Naim
Janaki Abraham
Suneeta Dhar
Jashodhara Dasgupta
Amrita Nandy
Kavita Punjabi
Ranjani Mazumdar
Sarmistha Dutta Gupta
Bindhulaxmi
Nivedita Menon
Rakhi Sehgal
Radhika Desai
Neeraj Malik
Javed Malik
Baaran Ijlaal
Svati Shah
Karuna D W
Sangeeta Chatterji
Geetha Nambisaan
Richa
Jan Abhiyan Sansthan, Shimla
Bebaak Collective-Voice of the Fearless
Vandana Mahajan
Teena Gill
Anup Kumar
Mast Ram
Anurita. P. Hazarika
Nilanju Dutta
Ranjita Biswas
West Bengal Forum for  Gender and Sexual Minority Rights (WBGSMR)
Sayantan Dutta
Malini Ghosh
 

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