Thursday, Feb 26, 2004
Rights violations in India: U.S. report
By Sridhar Krishnaswami
WASHINGTON, FEB. 25. The United States has maintained that while the Government of India "generally respected" the human rights of its citizens, "numerous serious problems remained" and has listed several "significant human rights abuses" to include extra judicial killings, faked encounters, custodial deaths and torture and rape by the police and other government agents.
In its Annual Human Rights Report for the year 2003, the State Department has said that among the "serious problems" with the Government of India are "occasional limits" on the freedom of the press and freedom of movement; harassment and arrest of human rights monitors and extensive societal violence against women that include legal and societal discrimination and forced prostitution. Other problems listed include discrimination and violence against indigenous people and Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.
"These abuses were generated by a traditionally hierarchical social structure, deeply rooted tensions among the country's many ethnic and religious communities, violent secessionist movements and the authorities' attempt to repress them and the deficient police methods and training," the State Department has said.
"These problems were the most visible in Jammu and Kashmir where judicial tolerance of the Government's heavy handed counter-insurgency tactics, the refusal of security forces to obey court orders and terrorist threats have disrupted the judicial system," the report says going on to point out that in the Northeast there has been no clear decrease in the number of killings in spite of a negotiated ceasefire between the Government and some insurgent forces and tribal groups.
The report cites statistics from the National Human Rights Commission that said there were 1,305 deaths in custody nationwide in 2001, the last year for which the data was available. The State Department report has also said that there were "no confirmed reports" of politically motivated disappearances due to action by government forces although there were numerous disappearances during the year.
The United States, through the Human Rights Report, has once again drawn attention to the fact that although the Constitution of India provides for a secular government and the protection of religious freedom, and the Central Government "generally respected" these provisions in practice, it "sometimes did not act effectively to counter societal attacks against religious minorities and attempts by State and local governments to limit religious freedom."
In the section on Respect for Civil Liberties including Freedom of Speech and Press, the State Department Report on Human Rights takes note of the developments in different States; and takes note of the defamation suit brought by the Tamil Nadu Government against The Hindu in July last "for printing a series of articles about the mishandling by police of a kidnapping. The case was not heard during the year."
And the State Department report has also taken note of the developments of last November when the "Tamil Nadu Assembly Speaker ordered the arrest of several officers and journalists" at The Hindu. "In response, the newspaper obtained an injunction from the Supreme Court against the Speaker's arrest directive," the State Department notes.
The Human Rights report also takes note of the attempts at the national and the State levels of the Government and political parties to influence the media, one of which being withholding of advertisements and other "strong arm" tactics.
Copyright © 2004, The Hindu.