Archive of South Asia Citizens Wire

  • India: New anti-terror laws would violate international human rights standards

    by sacw.net, 19 December 2008

    The organization calls upon the President, Indian authorities and lawmakers to urgently review the new amendments to the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, (UAPA), 1967, and provisions of the new legislation aiming to set up a National Investigating Agency (NIA), exclusively meant to probe acts of terrorism in the country.

  • Equality before the law?

    by sacw.net, 19 December 2008

    Herald, Panjim, 18 Dec 2008
    Editorial
    No lessons seem to be have learnt by the central government from the experiences with terrorism over the past few years. On 16 December, the central government tabled two laws in Parliament – one to set up an FBI-style National Investigation Agency (NIA) and the other to amend the law to bring in more stringent provisions to deal with terror crimes. Nobody can object to the NIA, but the latter law has many provisions similar to draconian laws (now (…)

  • The dead two nation theory remains an obsession for some

    19 December 2008

    Editorial, New Age, December 18, 2008 The birth of Bangladesh put ‘two-nation theory’ to rest
    THE fact that the Jamaat-e-Islami amir Matiur Rahman Nizami chose December 16, when we commemorate the nation’s victory in its long-drawn struggle for independence in 1971, to assert that the ‘two-nation theory’, as propagated by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, is still relevant for Bangladesh is in itself quite disturbing. The religion-based partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947-48, in line with (…)

  • Abuses Against Civilians in areas under LTTE control

    by sacw.net, 19 December 2008

    A 17-page report details how the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which have been fighting for an independent Tamil state for 25 years, are brutally abusing the Tamil population in areas under their control.

  • Arundhati Roy: Introspect before calling for sweeping anti terror laws

    by sacw.net, 18 December 2008

    Rupashree Nanda / CNN-IBN on Tue, Dec 16, 2008
    New Delhi: Booker Prize winning author and activist Arundhati Roy has expressed a strong disapproval for the call for POTA and says following the American model on homeland security isn’t a real option.
    In an exclusive interview with CNN-IBN, she says the country needs to introspect and not look at the terror attacks in isolation.
    Making sense of the attacks?
    It’s easy to go along the path and say that there is no reason, it’s complete (…)

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