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Amnesty International condemned denial of bail to jailed Muslim activist Umar Khalid.
Amnesty India’s Chief Aakar Patel said: “Umar’s continued detention for over 18 months comes against the backdrop of a rapidly shrinking space for critical voices and sets a chilling precedent for anyone whose views the authorities disagree with.”
Khalid, 34, along with more than a dozen other Muslims, is accused by the Indian authorities of being part of a “larger conspiracy” that led to religious riots in New Delhi in February 2020 which left 53 people dead, most of them Muslims, and dozens of houses and mosques torched.
The riots – the worst the Indian capital had seen in decades – followed peaceful sit-ins across the country, mainly organised by Muslim women, against the passage of the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s right-wing government in late 2019.
The activist, who was also jailed briefly for “sedition” in 2016 when he was a student at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University, has denied any involvement in the Delhi violence. However, the Delhi court on Thursday said there are “reasonable grounds” to believe that the allegations against him are “prima facie true” and “hence, the present application for bail of accused Umar Khalid stands dismissed”.
In its statement, Amnesty said Khalid’s continued detention under the UAPA “runs absolutely counter to the international human rights law and standards” and called on the Indian authorities to “immediately and unconditionally” release him and other human rights defenders “arbitrarily detained solely for expressing their opposition”
