Indian police in Delhi on November 29, 2024 carried out a politically motivated raid on the offices of the Association for Protection of Civil Rights (APCR), Human Rights Watch said today. The action appeared to be part of the government's crackdown against groups that criticize speech that could provoke violence against Muslims and other minorities.
The police claimed to be acting on a complaint over an exhibition by the group, that documents human rights abuses and incitement to violence against Muslims since Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in 2014. The police also attempted to detain Nadeem Khan, the group's national general secretary.
"It's perhaps unsurprising that Delhi police raided the offices of a group highlighting the BJP-led government's appalling record of targeting Muslims and other minorities over the last decade," said Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "Instead of revoking harmful policies and prosecuting those responsible, the government appears intent on punishing the messenger."
The exhibition highlighted politically motivated prosecutions of human rights defenders in India. It also documented mob violence by ultranationalist Hindus that has killed many Muslims, and hate speech by senior BJP leaders that has repeatedly incited violence against religious minorities, issues that have been well-documented by domestic and international rights groups.
The Association for Protection of Civil Rights said the Delhi police did not carry any notice or arrest warrant when they traveled to the southern city of Bangalore to arrest Khan, in violation of due process. The police said they were investigating Khan and the APCR for allegedly "promoting enmity" between various groups, and for criminal conspiracy. The police complaint is based on a video posted on social media of Khan showing the exhibit, discussing specific cases of violence against Muslims and relevant court judgments. The video, posted on X by a BJP supporter who called for police action against the exhibit, was posted separately by a BJP minister a day later.
On December 3, the Delhi High Court granted Khan interim protection from arrest for three days and instructed him to cooperate with the police investigation.
The Association for Protection of Civil Rights has provided legal aid in a number of human rights cases across the country. These include defending activists wrongfully prosecuted under India's counterterrorism law, the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, in a case relating to communal violence in Delhi in February 2020 in which 53 people, mostly Muslims, were killed. "APCR is one of the few organizations in the country that is actively engaged in advocating for us and providing every help including legal aid," an activist said.
The raid on the APCR is not an isolated case, Human Rights Watch said. Police in Uttar Pradesh state have accused Mohammed Zubair, cofounder of an independent fact-checking website, Alt News, of promoting enmity between different religious groups, as well as "endangering sovereignty, unity and integrity of India," for posting a video of a Hindu religious leader making Islamophobic remarks. On December 3, the judges hearing Zubair's case in Allahabad High Court recused themselves and directed that the case be listed before another bench.
Zubair had posted a video showing the Hindu religious leader Yati Narsinghanand making derogatory remarks against the Prophet Muhammad in a speech on September 29. Narsinghanand has repeatedly called for violence against Muslims, and in January 2022 was arrested for making Islamophobic and misogynistic comments and spent a month in jail.
The police added charges of "endangering sovereignty" that could lead to Zubair's immediate arrest based on complaints. Zubair was previously arrested by Delhi police in 2022, on charges of hurting Hindu sentiments in a 2018 Twitter post. The police opposed bail, seized his electronic devices, and secured an order to hold him for 14 days in custody while they investigated. The Supreme Court granted bail saying that the "power of arrests must be pursued sparingly. In the present case, there is no justification to keep him in continued detention and subject him to an endless round of proceedings in various courts."
In the recent case, Zubair told the BBC that while a number of journalists, politicians, and media channels had also shared the video of Narsinghanand's latest speech on X, the police "are going after someone who's reporting hate speeches, while people giving hate speeches are going free."
"The Indian government appears determined to silence voices that speak out against its abusive practices as well as those who provide assistance to people facing malicious investigations," Pearson said. "By punishing people for exercising their free expression rights, the government isn't silencing their message but only adding to the mounting list of human rights abuses."
