Rights activists, academics and authors have condemned the Indian government’s decision sanctioning the prosecution of Booker prize-winning author Arundhati Roy under a controversial and stringent anti-terrorism law.
More than 200 people have written a joint letter to the government seeking revocation of the decision to prosecute the author for saying at a conference 14 years ago that Kashmir had never been “an integral part of India.”
On June 14, Vinai Kumar Saxena, Delhi’s senior-most administrative official from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), authorized prosecution of the 62-year-old author, along with Kashmiri academic Sheikh Showkat Hussain.
The two are accused under an anti-terrorism law known as the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), for remarks they made about Kashmir at a seminar in Delhi in 2010.
In their letter to the government, the activists and others said that Roy’s remarks at a seminar cannot be considered as an incitement to violence.
“We the concerned citizens of India deplore this action and appeal to the government and the democratic forces in the country to ensure that no infringement of the fundamental right to freely and fearlessly express views on any subject takes place in our nation.”
The office of the U.N. high commissioner for human rights added its own concerns on Thursday over the planned prosecution of Roy and Hussain under the anti-terrorism law.
This story was originally published in voanews.com. Read the full story here.
