Members of the CEU Student Union and the Szabad Egyetem condemn state violence unleashed upon university students protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in India.

The right to protest and information is safeguarded as a fundamental right under the constitution of India. The recent actions by the Indian government to prevent students from dissenting against the CAA through brutal violence, is a systematic attack against the freedom of expression. It is a gross violation of human rights under the Indian constitution and a breach of International Human Rights.

About the CAA:

The CAA is an act that was recently codified in India, granting preferential access to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian minorities from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan for Indian citizenship. However, the act conspicuously excludes Muslim and other persecuted religious minorities from those countries.

A vast group of Indians have taken to the streets to protest the CAA which they view as unconstitutional, since it violates a core principle of Indian Law that everyone is equal before the law and should have equal protection of the law.  The CAA is threatening to damage India’s long-standing constitutional commitment to secularism.

What followed were several incidences of student protesters being met with violent responses to peaceful protests- attacked in the confines of their own university campuses, with hostels being broken into, tear gas being used and students brutally beaten up.

The protests led to a persistent internet and telecommunication blockade which was adopted by the government as a means of law enforcement. Internet services were shut down in eight states by the authorities in the last month during various political uprisings —Kashmir had entered over 136 days of shutdown as of late December, one of the longest internet shutdowns to happen in a democracy.

Human dignity and freedom of speech are inalienable rights. For this reason, we strongly condemn the unbridled violence unleashed against the students on December 15, 2019, and other actions from the Indian state aiming to silence dissent. We also strongly condemn further violence that has been unleashed upon the students of Jawaharlal Nehru University as of January 6, 2019.

We express full solidarity with students from Jamia Millia University, Aligarh Muslim University, Delhi University, Jawaharlal Nehru University and other educational institutions across India.

Szabad Ország, Szabad Egyetem (Free country, free university) everywhere!

If you wish to support this fight against state-sanctioned violence, please sign the following petition addressed to Jaideep Govind, Secretary-General, National Human Rights Commission; Sharad Arvind Bobde, Chief Justice of India; UNHRC; Justice H. L. Dattu, Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission.