‘Release Prabir Purkayastha’ Demand Politicians, Journalists, Activists

Politicians, journalists, activists and intellectuals came together in solidarity with incarcerated journalist and founder of news portal Newsclick Prabir Purkayastha as he completed six months in jail.

CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury, party leader Brinda Karat, CPI general secretary D Raja, AAP leader Gopal Rai, former IAS officer and activist Harsh Mander, and senior journalist P Sainath were among those who expressed solidarity with Purkayastha, who was arrested in October 2023, following raids on Newsclick.

Speaking about Bharatiya Janata Party’s crackdown on dissent, the opposition leaders and intellectuals raised concerns and called the current situation an “undeclared emergency”.

“We are not just here to express solidarity with a person... he has played an important role in all people's movements,” Yechury said.

Yechury said arrests were being made without evidence, adding that the account of the Thrisur unit of CPI(M) was frozen on the eve of the election.

"Today, an order was issued to freeze the bank account of our Thrissur district committee. They have not revealed the reason, they say under new law, they are not required to answer," Yechury said.

"They want to change the character of independent India. Changing it into Hindu rashtra is their aim," he added.‘Release Prabir Purkayastha’ Demand Politicians, Journalists, Activists

Yechury said that his friendship with Purkayastha went back to his days in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and recalled he was also arrested during the emergency.

AAP leader Gopal Rai said that it was becoming increasingly difficult to know whether the jail was inside or whether it was outside.

Rai also slammed the Union government for trying to crush dissent. “There's an attack on the opposition across the country. The Modi government was here five years ago as well, but the ED (Enforcement Directorate) was not a household name. What has changed? The ED and Modi are one, it's difficult to differentiate,” he further said.

“Elected Delhi Chief Minister is in jail, there is no evidence, no facts, Modi was saying I want to end corruption... If someone is saving the corrupt in this country it's the BJP,” he added.

“Today through mobile phones we can make videos and its reach matters. This power organisations like Newsclick had,” he said.

CPI(M) politburo member Brinda Karat said that Purkayastha, 75, has asthma and suffered lung infection four times recently.

“I met him twice in jail, his health condition was serious. He is an asthma patient, he had chest infection four times recently,” Karat said.

Speaking about tribal activist Stan Swamy, Karat said, “These people killed Stan Swami in jail by claiming that his situation was stable...”

In Purkayastha’s case,"When everything failed, they arrested him under the black law UAPA," she said.

Veteran journalist and activist P Sainath said Purkayastha was targeted for being a rationalist.

Sainath named journalists like Narendra Dabholkar, MM Kalburgi and Gauri Lankesh who were assassinated, and said, "being a rationalist was Prabir's crime."

Harsh Mander, D Raghunandan, Prabhat Patnaik, CPIML leader Sucheta De and All India Forward Bloc general secretary D Deverajan were also among those who attended the opposition meeting.

Meanwhile, a letter was sent to Brazilian President Lula da Silva in the second week of March, signed by representatives of the eight Brazilian organisations that created the World Social Forum in January 2001.

The worldwide campaign in defence of Purkayastha’s freedom joins the campaign for Assange’s release and will have a new letter to the UN Secretary General, António Guterres.

“We are reaching out to communicate a grave matter and to request your support. The Indian journalist Prabir Purkayastha, one of the organizers of the World Social Forum in India in 2004, is currently imprisoned at the age of 78. He has been incarcerated for three months by the regime of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. This imprisonment is political in nature. It aims to silence Newsclick, a democratic publication supportive of social movements, created and led by Prabir. It is based on an ultra-authoritarian law, previously declared as an attack on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by UN rapporteurs. As India, along with Brazil, is present in the BRICS, we believe that you can contribute to rectifying this injustice and this assault on political freedoms,” the letter read.

Mentioning the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) the intellectuals criticised the anti-terror law averring it was being used on people without concrete evidence.

“The law also authorizes the confiscation of the assets of the individuals under investigation – which has already occurred with the publication led by Prabir, Newsclick. On the eve of Christmas 2023, the newspaper’s bank accounts were frozen. Salaries and other commitments have not been paid since then. The suffocation attempt is evident.”

“The Indian government wants to punish Prabir for his success. Founded in 2009, Newsclick has achieved great audience and impact. It produced compelling news and analyses about events in India and the world, advocating a clearly anti-neoliberal interpretation. It also allied itself with significant social movements, such as the major national farmers’ protest of 2020-2021. This struggle resulted in the harshest defeat suffered by Modi in ten years of office, forcing him to abandon a set of counter-reforms that threatened peasant production and handed over the countryside to corporations,” the letter further read.

Delhi Police on March 30 filed its first charge sheet, spread across about 8,000 pages, in the UAPA case against Newsclick and its founder Prabir Purkayastha for allegedly running Chinese propaganda, naming him and the firm owning the portal as accused.

The Delhi Police Special Cell had last year registered a case under sections 13, 16, 17, 18 and 22 of the UAPA along with sections 153A and 120B of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) in the matter.

It also arrested NewsClick's founder Prabir Purkayastha and HR head Amit Chakravarty on October 3, 2023.

In January this year, the court allowed Chakravarty's application, seeking permission to turn an approver.