What is Sedition?
More than 70 years after the country got freedom, the country’s democracy is in danger. We are in a period where the Central Government is run by a party that believes that there should not be any objection to its policies and where dissidence is deemed as sedition. A period where we need to analyze the significance of the word ‘nation’ and what is meant by ’conspiring against nation’. According to the Centre, supporting peaceful protests that are taking place in the country amounts to sedition. It is a crime for citizens to raise voices against injustice and inequality. For committing this ‘crime’, 21-year old environmental activist Disha Ravi has been arrested and taken into custody by the Delhi police. Her crime was putting together a ‘toolkit’ that describes how to support the farmers’ agitation that is against the three recent farm laws. This ‘tool kit’ has been shared by global environmental activist Greta Thurnberg and other celebrities.
While Disha Ravi is arrested and taken into custody for the toolkit that was shared by Greta and others (there is no information whether permission from the Karnataka police was obtained for this), at the same time, former DySP Davinder Singh facing charges of terrorism walks out of jail on bail. Hundreds of such instances can be provided. A Saadhvi who is arrested on charges of terrorism and bomb blast is released and then elected to the Lok Sabha and continues to retain her seat even after supporting the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. In the absence of official pronouncement of Emergency, this country has witnessed incidents where famous poet Varavara Rao, eminent thinker and author of several books on Ambedkar Anand Teltumbe, leader of human rights activists and lawyer Sudha Bharadwaj have been jailed and facing false cases of sedition while forged documents have been and planted in the mobile phone and personal computer of activist Rona Wilson.
The peaceful protests of farmers in New Delhi for the past two and a half months against the farm laws that seek to push the country’s farm markets into the arms of corporates have received support both nationally and internationally. All attempts and conspiracies to defeat the protests have failed. The conspiracy to defame farmers by making them responsible for the action of a few miscreants who were allowed to hoist the flag on the Red Fort on Republic Day came a cropper. Over the past few months, the country has witnessed how farmers were invited for talks while at the same time they were ridiculed or how those who supported the farmers’ agitation were arrested and imprisoned. The arrest of Disha Ravi, carried out only to make sure that the country’s citizens, especially youth, do not support the farmers’ agitation, reflects the government’s frustration and its dictatorial attitude.
Now, the country is not in an Emergency. But those who claim they fought Emergency in 1975 are in power. By trying to repeatedly muzzle differences and resistance, the government is resorting to authoritarian ways even without imposing Emergency. As the Constitutional bodies have also become inert, justice seems a mirage for innocent people. It appears that the huge corporate lobby has control over the government. The way people are being arrested, the whole country might turn into a prison soon. But this will not continue for long. We have many examples of countries where people’s voices are muzzled through policies of repression but it cannot be forgotten that such governments pay a heavy price. The government must immediately stop its dictatorial methods and respond to the farmers’ peaceful protests by meeting their demands, and releasing the young environmental activist.
A situation has been created in the country where everyone other than those in power have to bear the allegations of sedition. Not only Disha Ravi. They have not spared persons of the likes of popular journalist Rajdeep Sardesai and MP Shashi Tharoor. Questioning the act of selling public sector undertakings at throwaway price is an act of sedition. Opposing demonetization is sedition. Condemning atrocities against Dalits is sedition. Supporting farmers agitation is sedition. Not just this, in their view, Gandhi is a traitor. Nehru is a traitor. Who then is a patriot? Those who kill innocents on the pretext of transporting cattle, those who worship the assassin of Gandhi, those who raid and attack places of worship of the minorities and those who sponsor such events are seen as patriots. Such an autocratic repressive regime on the likes of Hitler’s will not continue for long. It is high time the government rectified its mistakes and provided governance that is appropriate for a democracy.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Israel detains director of one of northern Gaza's last functioning hospitals, Palestinians say
Deir al-Balah, Dec 28: Israel's army detained the director of one of northern Gaza's last functioning hospitals as overnight strikes in the territory killed nine people, including children, Palestinian medical officials said Saturday.
Gaza's Health Ministry said Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, was arrested by Israeli forces Friday along with dozens of other staff and taken to an interrogation centre. The ministry said Israeli troops stormed the hospital and forced many staff and patients outside and told them to strip in winter weather, according to the ministry.
Israel's army didn't respond to questions about the director. On Friday, it denied it had entered or set fire to the hospital complex but acknowledged it had ordered people outside, and said it was conducting operations against Hamas infrastructure and its members in the area.
The military repeated claims that Hamas group operate inside Kamal Adwan but provided no evidence. Hospital officials have denied that.
The hospital has been hit multiple times over the past three months by Israeli troops waging an offensive in largely isolated northern Gaza against Hamas fighters it says have regrouped. The health ministry said a strike on the hospital earlier this week killed five medical personnel.
MedGlobal, the humanitarian organisation for which Abu Safiya worked, said Friday it was gravely concerned about him. It said the incident follows the October detention of five other staff, calling it an “alarming and egregious pattern of targeting medical personnel and spaces.”
Israel's nearly 15-month-old campaign of bombardment and ground offensives has devastated Gaza's health sector. The World Health Organisation has said the raid on Kamal Adwan has put northern Gaza's last major health facility “out of service" after growing restrictions on access, adding that “this horror must end and health care must be protected.”
The Health Ministry said conditions for Kamal Adwan patients who were relocated to the damaged Indonesian Hospital nearby — also raided in the past — were “extremely difficult.”
The war has killed more than 45,400 Palestinians, over half of them women and children, and wounded more than 108,000 others, according to the Health Ministry. Its count does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Since October, Israel's offensive has virtually sealed off the northern Gaza areas of Jabaliya, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya and leveled large parts of them. Tens of thousands of Palestinians were forced out but thousands are believed to remain in the area where Kamal Adwan and two other hospitals are located.
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas after the groups Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel in which they killed around 1,200 people and abducted some 250 others. Some 100 Israelis remain captive in Gaza, around a third believed to be dead.
Israel continued attacks across Gaza on Saturday. An overnight strike killed at least nine people in Maghazi, including women and children, according to staff at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital where they were taken and an Associated Press reporter who saw the bodies.
Men cried as the bodies, wrapped in bloodied white plastic, lay on the floor of the morgue.
The Health Ministry said Saturday that 48 people had been killed in the past 24 hours by Israeli fire.
Meanwhile, Israel said its troops had begun operating in the northern city of Beit Hanoun, citing intelligence that fighters and Hamas infrastructure were in the area.
Strikes also continued in Israel. Air raid sirens sounded early Saturday and the military said it intercepted a missile fired by Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels.
Israeli warplanes bombed key infrastructure in Yemen again on Thursday. The Houthis also have been attacking shipping in the Red Sea and say they won't stop until Israel agrees to a ceasefire in Gaza.
