South Asia Citizens Web

Indian courts have consistently upheld and championed the fundamental right to free speech and expression enshrined in the Constitution. This includes the right to put forward different and contrary views, right or wrong. A recent instance saw the Supreme Court of India striking down Uttar Pradesh’s ban on the film Aarakshan. This article by A.P. Shah, retired Chief Justice of the Madras and Delhi High Courts, sets out key issues relating to freedom of expression and censorship by the state.

What’s Islamic law and a sharia court doing in a secular democratic polity? Your guess is as good as mine. The J&K government, it seems, knows better. Acting suo motu, the police arrested the priest within 24-hours of a warning from Kashmir’s grand mufi. Why should conversion of a few Muslims to Christianity be deemed a malicious act intended to outrage religious feelings?

In July 2010 the Labour Quami Movement (LQM) in Pakistan began negotiating with employers to implement a 17% wage increase adopted by Government. Following 3 weeks of negotiations employers refused to pass on the pay increase. Subsequently 100,000 workers in Faisalabad and surrounding areas came out on strike to protest. It was during this strike that LQM trade union leaders were labelled as terrorists by the employers and they were arrested at a local police station. In early November 2011 the Anti Terrorism Court of Pakistan sentenced 6 union leaders to 490 years in jail for terrorism offences, despite the lack of any legitimate evidence to justify their arrest and sentencing. It is clear that the employers and judiciary aligned to silence the fundamental right of the workers to organise and bargain collectively as prescribed in ILO coventions 87 and 98.

23 November 2011 – Judicial and law enforcement officials are so far implementing sporadically the two-year-old law supporting the equality and rights of Afghan women, and the Government has not yet succeeded in applying the law to the vast majority of cases of violence against women, the United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan (UNAMA) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said in a report released today.

Six years ago while on a speaking tour of nearly 25 schools, colleges and universities across India, I discovered that only a handful of students had ever seen a living, breathing Pakistani. None had heard an academic from across the border speak. A 12-year-old school student, who obviously did not know Hindi and Urdu were similar, wondered aloud how a real Pakistani could be speaking their language. For these puzzled students, Pakistanis are alien people belonging to an adversary country, not next-door neighbours.