What is the case?
Disha Ravi is a 22-year old climate activist, who has been arrested for allegedly collaborating to create and sharing a toolkit used for the farmers protest.
Ravi was arrested by the cyber crime unit of Delhi Police from her home in North Bengaluru on Saturday on the grounds of sedition.
What is sedition anyway?
The Sedition Act of India states that whoever brings or attempts to bring into hatred or contempt, or excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards the Government will be held liable. The Supreme Court laid down that every citizen has a right to say or write about the government, by way of criticism or comment, as long as it does not “incite people to violence” against the government established by law or with the intention of creating public disorder.
The act requires incitement of violence to be applicable.
According to Ravi, she only edited two sentences in the document on February 3rd. Two more non-bailable arrest warrants were issued against activists Nikita Jacob and Shantanu Muluk. The police also claim they have access to WhatsApp chats where Ravi asked Greta to delete the tweet, and then sent her a revised version of the toolkit.
What did the toolkit contain?
The toolkit calls for signing petitions, a TwitterStorm, calling and emailing government representatives, recording videos and joining protests at Indian embassies.
According to Indian Express, the toolkit also contained hyperlinks to the Poetic Justice Foundation and other websites that have pro-Khalistani associations.
The prior action section contained an action plan for the event on January 26.
“There is nothing in the toolkit in regard to inciting violence” according to a former Supreme Court judge, Deepak Gupta.
Was legal procedure followed?
According to the Delhi Police, Disha Ravi was arrested from her home in Bengaluru in the presence of her mother and a local police officer. The arrest memo has her mother's signature, the police said, and added that she was also in touch with her lawyers. However, different reports detail different versions of this event and it is not clear if procedure was followed
The Delhi police, however, did not get permission from a local court, as is the legal precedent
Ravi was also present in court without her lawyer, who was still in Bangalore. She was provided with court-mandated legal aid. However, according to the constitution, the detained individual must be defended by legal aid of their choice
Irrespective of one’s stand on the bills or the protests, we must remember that at the end of the day we live in a democratic country. The freedom of speech is a fundamental right- which means it stands above and before any other law in the constitution.
Laws such as the Sedition Law are a slippery slope- they can become weapons at the hands of a powerful government, and thus need to be implemented very cautiously. If on one extreme, Disha Ravi did collaborate to write the “toolkit” (which is actually a common practice for any protest), is it enough to indicate sedition, when there is no mention of violence in the document?
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