Security forces shutting down
internet access and detaining demonstrators as dissidents swept up and at least
three people killed.
The crackdown by Indian
authorities against those protesting the country's new citizenship laws
escalated Thursday as government security forces shut down internet across some
cities, detained at least 1,200 people, killed at least three demonstrators,
and pulled prominent intellectuals off the street.
Common Dreams reported on
the growing protest movement Monday, which at that point was concentrated in
universities across India. Thursday's demonstrations were broader in scope and
contended with security forces using Section
144, a law from colonial British rule stating that more than four people
meeting in one place constitutes an unlawful assembly, to shut down dissent
after the protest movement exploded around the country.
In the city of New
Delhi, according to
reports, 1,200 protesters were detained.
"It's a shameful thing,"
Indian leftist author and activist Arundhati Roy said. "This whole
business of Section 144, suspending the internet, and arresting people."
"They are turning India
into Kashmir," Roy added, referring to the Indian government's brutal
repression of the semi-autnomous region to the north.
There have been three deaths
due to security forces attacking protesters, according to the BBC:
Two people died in the city of
Mangalore after officers opened fire on demonstrators allegedly trying to set
fire to a police station. Commissioner Dr. PS Harsha told reporters that a
curfew is in place in the city, and that he was waiting for a post mortem
before announcing the cause of death for either man.
Another man also died in the
city of Lucknow, where violent clashes between demonstrators and police earlier
in the day saw buses set alight.
Video from around India showed
demonstrators of all ages joining in the movement.
"I think the government
was completely unprepared for the anger that this particular passage of the law
was going to present," said Al
Jazeera reporter Sohail Rahman.
Indian authorities shut down
certain area's internet access, continuing a pattern that The New York
Times noted Thursday
is unique to the south Asian country among democracies.
"India
tops the world—by far—in the number of digital lockdowns it has
imposed, outpacing authoritarian governments such as Syria and Turkey,"
the paper reported.
Images and video on social
media showed historian Ramachandra Guha and University of Delhi English
professor Ira Raja—prominent intellectuals in India—being detained by security
forces.
"The police are working
under directions from central government," Guha told
reporters in the seconds before he was dragged away by police in the
southern city of Bengaluru. "We are protesting non-violently against a
discriminatory act, in a disciplined way."
India's unrest is due to the
government's recently-passed Citizenship Amendment Bill, which effectively bars
Muslims—but not other groups—from becoming naturalized through onerous
requirements aimed at the religion. The country's 200 million-strong Muslim
minority fears that the bill is another part of an ongoing effort by Prime
Minister Narendra Modi's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to marginalize
their community.
As the Times reported,
the bill is likely only the beginning:
Amit Shah, the home minister
and Mr. Modi's right-hand man, has vowed to expand a contentious
citizenship review process that has already left nearly two million
people, from one state in northeastern India, potentially without a country.
Mr. Shah and other party
officials have said the policy is not intended to discriminate against Indian
Muslims. Rather, they say, it is needed to expel illegal immigrants from
Bangladesh, India's poorer, predominantly Muslim neighbor.
"This government wants to
turn us into second-class citizens," 70-year-old protester Fasiur
Rehman told Al
Jazeera.
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