Amnesty International halts India operations, says facing crackdown

NEW DELHI: Human rights group Amnesty International stopped its work in India on Tuesday saying the government had frozen its bank accounts in the latest action against it for speaking out about rights violations.

The group said it had laid off staff after facing a crackdown over the past two years over allegations of financial wrongdoing that it said were baseless.

“This is latest in the incessant witch-hunt of human rights organizations by the government of India over unfounded and motivated allegations,” Amnesty said in a statement.

Its bank accounts were frozen on Sept. 10, it said.

The continuing crackdown on @AIIndia over the last two years and the complete freezing of bank accounts is not accidental. This is not the end of Amnesty India’s commitment to human rights, we will not be silenced by the attacks of the government. pic.twitter.com/pgZprkfIfe

— Amnesty International (@amnesty) September 29, 2020

Amnesty had highlighted rights violations in recent months in the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) region as well as what it said was a lack of police accountability during riots in New Delhi in February, and the government had sought to punish it, it said.

Read: Modi govt wants to crush Amnesty International for reporting rights abuse in Kashmir

There was no immediate response from government spokesmen to requests for comment, Reuters reported.

“We are facing a rather unprecedented situation in India. Amnesty International India has been facing an onslaught of attacks, bullying and harassment by the government in a very systematic manner,” Rajat Khosla, the group’s senior director of research, advocacy and policy, told the BBC.

“This is all down to the human rights work that we were doing and the government not wanting to answer questions we raised, whether it’s in terms of our investigations into the Delhi riots, or the silencing of voices in Jammu and Kashmir.”

Read: CAB protests: Amnesty slams India for brutal crackdown on AMU students

Earlier in August, on the first anniversary of the revocation of Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir’s special status, Amnesty had called for the release of all detained political leaders, activists and journalists, and for the resumption of high-speed internet services in the region.

In 2019, the watchdog testified before the US Foreign Affairs Committee during a hearing on human rights in South Asia, where it highlighted its findings on arbitrary detentions, and the use of excessive force and torture in Kashmir.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has faced accusations that it is clamping down on dissent, including in Muslim-majority Kashmir, where residents have battled government forces for more than 30 years to get their self-determination rights.

Read: Amnesty International urges India to lift blackout in occupied Kashmir

Critics also say the government is pushing a Hindu-first agenda, undermining the secular foundations of India’s democracy and raising fears among its 170 million Muslim minority.

Opposition politician Shashi Tharoor said Amnesty’s exit was a blow.

“India’s stature as a liberal democracy with free institutions, including media & civil society organisations, accounted for much of its soft power in the world. Actions like this both undermine our reputation as a democracy & vitiate our soft power,” he said on Twitter.

Critics of the organization, however, cheered its departure, posting comments on Twitter such as “good riddance” and accusing the group of turning a blind eye to hate crimes against Hindus elsewhere in the region.

Read: Kashmir ‘back to dark ages’ with India’s human rights violations: Amnesty International

The group has in the past fallen foul of Indian governments, including one run by the centrist Congress party, and this would be the fifth time it had ceased operations, its former head, Aakar Patel, said.

Amnesty said that this time, the federal financial crimes investigation agency, the Enforcement Directorate, had targeted it because of its work on human rights.

“The constant harassment by government agencies including the Enforcement Directorate is a result of our unequivocal calls for transparency in the government,” said Avinash Kumar, executive director of Amnesty International India.

“For a movement that has done nothing but raise its voices against injustice, this latest attack is akin to freezing dissent,” he said.

Read: India misuses law in occupied Kashmir: Amnesty International report

Amnesty and other groups have accused police of complicity in the riots in Delhi in which at least 50 people were killed, most of them Muslims, Reuters reported. Police denied the allegation.

The government has been tightening oversight of foreign non-governmental groups (NGOs), they say.

Last year, the environmental group Greenpeace said it had to shut two offices in India and had asked many staff to leave because of a block on its bank account after accusations of illegal donations.

Last week, the government enacted changes in the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Amendment Bill setting new conditions for organisations. Some NGOs said the measures seeking tighter control of funds were aimed at creating an air of distrust.

Kumar said more than four million Indians had supported Amnesty’s work in the last eight years and about 100,000 Indians had donated money.