Indian Court rejects Stan Swamy bail plea
Published by MAC on 2020-11-05Source: The Hindu, RFI
The octogenarian activist is accused in the Bhima Koregaon violence case in Maharashtra, India.
This is an appalling assault on someone of such high integrity, clearly now grievously suffering even more, from humiliating treatment meted out by the most egregious of Indian state defenders.
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Court rejects bail plea of Stan Swamy
The activist working with tribals is an accused in Bhima Koregaon violence case.
https://www.thehindu.com/news/
October 23, 2020
A special National Investigation Agency (NIA) court has rejected the interim medial bail plea of 83-year-old Stan Swamy, accused in the Bhima Koregaon violence case and lodged in the Taloja Central Jail.
Mr. Swamy, a Jesuit priest and activist working with tribals, was arrested on October 8 from his residence at Ranchi and was brought to Mumbai the next day. He was remanded in judicial custody from October 9.
Advocates Sharif Shaikh and Kritika Agarwal, representing the octogenarian, told the court that Mr. Swamy has been suffering from Parkinson’s disease and has almost lost hearing ability in both ears. He has fallen in jail multiple times.
Mr. Shaikh sought his bail on humanitarian grounds and as per the recommendations of the committee appointed by the Supreme Court to release prisoners in view of COVID-19 outbreak. The Central agency opposed the bail saying Mr. Swamy is taking undue benefit of the pandemic. Mr. Swamy has since been shifted to the prison hospital.
Protests erupt in India as octogenarian Catholic priest faces terror trial
Demands to free an ailing Catholic priest have gathered pace in India after 83-year-old Fr Stanislaus Lourduswamy became the oldest person to be accused of terrorism.
https://www.rfi.fr/en/international/20201022-protests-erupt-in-india-as-octogenarian-jesuit-priest-faces-terror-trial-stanislaus-lourduswamy-stan-swamy-catholic-hindu-bjp
22/10/2020
Opposition politicians, rights groups, students and members of parliament joined Hemant Soren, chief minister of Lourduswamy’s home-state Jharkhand in rallying against his 8 October arrest on charges of being a Maoist terrorist.
The Jesuit priest was jailed for 14 days by a court after federal police arrested him in the state capital Ranchi and spirited him away to Mumbai, 1,700 kilometres from his hometown.
The Mumbai court is likely to rule on his appeal for bail on Friday.
Lourduswamy, popularly known as Fr Stan Swamy, asserted he was arrested only because he challenged the incarceration of 3,000 indigenous inhabitants of Jharkhand, when it was administered by India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The BJP was voted out of power in the mineral-rich eastern Indian state last year.
“It is this which became a bone of contention with the state. They wanted me out of the way, and one easy way was to implicate me in some cases,” the priest said in a video message.
'Absurd accusations'
Lourduswamy is the seventh person accused of instigating clashes in a western Indian village in 2018. His longtime associate, Jean Dreze, said the police charges were nothing but a “morass of absurd accusations”.
“My question is: 'Why was this 83-year-old harmless man arrested?'” the Belgian-born Indian economist asked during a Wednesday night debate on Indian television.
“He's not trying to hide, he is not running away, he is cooperating with the investigating agencies. He is not in good health and he is thrown into a jail where he could easily die,” Dreze said.
Jharkhand’s elected government has promised to stand by Fr Stan Swamy, who has worked for decades to help lowest caste Hindus and Jharkhand’s dirt poor tribespeople, called Advisis.
“This is a clear case of human rights violations and a display of the BJP’s authoritarian behaviour spreading across the country. We will oppose this,” state health minister Banna Gupta added.
Protests in Indian cities
Thousands of Catholic nuns and priests have marched in protest in several cities since Lourduswamy was put behind bars.
Ranchi Archbishop Felix Toppo was joined by priests, nuns and city residents as they formed a five-kilometre human chain in Lourduswamy’s hometown October 16.
Prominent Indian scholars, lawyers and historians such as Ramchandra Guha have also spoken out in favour of his release from state custody.
Some commentators allege the Catholic priest was in the crosshairs of mining corporations.
“Stan Swamy and the Adivasis he supports in an impossible battle for their own ancestral lands are tiny pawns pitted against mammoth mining companies,” commented Mari Marcel Thekaekara, an Indian author.
“Falsely branding activists as Maoists is the easiest way to condemn them and to enable vested interests to finish them off,” she told online publication The Wire.