Civil unrest

A prominent Indian human rights activist who spearheaded a campaign to hold officials responsible for deadly 2002 riots in the western state of Gujarat has been arrested and faces charges of fabricating evidence against the prime minister, Narendra Modi. The activist, Teesta Setalvad, was detained by an antiterrorism squad on Saturday in Mumbai and taken north to the neighboring state of Gujarat to face charges relating to a case brought against Mr. Modi when he was the state’s top official. While he was never found responsible, for years Indians have asked whether Mr. Modi could have curtailed or stopped the sectarian riots, in which more than 1,000 people were killed. Ms. Setalvad was detained after India’s top court Friday dismissed a petition that challenged Mr. Modi’s exoneration in the strife. Just before she was arrested, India’s home minister, Amit Shah, accused Ms. Setalvad of feeding fraudulent information to the police about the riots to tarnish Mr. Modi’s image. Mr. … [Read more...] about Prominent Activist in India Arrested Over Crusade Against Modi in Deadly Riots

Before anyone outside her hometown knew her name, Disha Ravi spent four years raising awareness among young people in Bangalore about the effects of climate change. Now the 21-year-old activist is jailed in New Delhi. The allegation: She distributed a “tool kit” in the form of a Google Doc containing talking points and contact information for influential groups to drum up support for farmers who have been protesting against the Indian government for months. The document — which the police say she shared with Greta Thunberg, the 18-year-old Swedish climate activist — resembles the kind that grass-roots organizations around the world have used for years to campaign for their causes. But Ms. Ravi, the police contend, was using it to “spread disaffection against the Indian State.” The arrest, the latest in a series of broader crackdown on activists, has triggered anger and disbelief among opposition politicians, student groups and lawyers, who say the government is using its … [Read more...] about Climate Activist Jailed in India as Government Clamps Down on Dissent

BEIJING — The police in Beijing have put five young female activists under formal detention on suspicion of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” lawyers for four of the women said on Friday. The charge is one that the Chinese authorities have increasingly used in recent years to quell activism and discussion of social and political issues. All the women were being held at the Haidian Detention Center in western Beijing, even though two of them were detained last week in other cities in eastern China, according to the lawyers. Only one of the women, Li Tingting, had managed to meet face to face with a lawyer at the detention center. “She has done nothing that would constitute ‘picking quarrels and provoking trouble,’ ” the lawyer, Yan Xin, said in a telephone interview. Mr. Yan said that Ms. Li looked fine when he saw her on Thursday at the detention center. He said she had told him that the police officers who showed up at her apartment on the evening of March 6 to detain … [Read more...] about 5 Women’s Rights Activists Are Formally Detained in Beijing

First, the accountant and the freelance writer were taken away. Then, the former tutor with a degree in English literature. And several days later, the police came for the editor at the Beijing publishing house. The four detained women were friends. They spent their free time in China’s capital as many curious, creative-minded young people did: hosting book clubs, watching movies, discussing social issues like feminism and L.G.B.T.Q. rights over barbecue. When protests against coronavirus restrictions broke out in November across China , including in Beijing, they attended. And now, they are among the first people known to have been formally arrested in connection with those protests. China is waging a campaign of intimidation against people who joined the demonstrations, which were the boldest challenge to the Communist Party’s rule in decades and an embarrassing affront to its leader, Xi Jinping. The party seems determined to warn off anyone who may have been emboldened by … [Read more...] about In China’s Crackdown on Protesters, a Familiar Effort to Blame Foreign Powers

SHIQIAO, China - The peasants surrounded the clerk in the busy court anteroom, badgering him to let them sue the officials who had seized their land. No, no, the clerk said, shaking his head and waving his hands, as the peasants recalled it. They were wasting his time and theirs. But as they withdrew, their legal papers remained on his desk in plain sight. Maybe, the peasants hoped, that meant the clerk had tacitly accepted their application to sue. "In two years of trying every option under the law, this was a moment of optimism," said Li Huitang, a leader of peasant resistance in Shiqiao, a village in Hebei Province, in northern China. "We hoped he might rule on our request." Even a written rejection would have been a bonanza, enabling them to appeal to a higher court. But it was not to be. The clerk soon called Mr. Li's home, ordering him to retrieve the documents. When Mr. Li declined, the clerk mailed them back in a plain manila envelope, unmarked, unprocessed and officially … [Read more...] about When Chinese Sue the State, Cases Are Often Smothered

BEIJING — A remarkable assortment of foreign organizations set up shop in China in the decades after its emergence from isolation under Mao Zedong, offering good will, money and expertise that helped link the nation more closely to the rest of the world and turn it into the global powerhouse it is today. But sweeping new legislation introduced by the government of President Xi Jinping is forcing many of these groups — including international trade associations and philanthropic foundations — to consider scaling back their activities in China or pulling out of the country entirely. The proposed law, which began circulating in draft form last month and is expected to be enacted later this year, would put foreign nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations under the supervision of the Chinese security apparatus, reflecting both the more restrictive approach toward civil society endorsed by Mr. Xi and the ruling Communist Party’s longstanding fear that external forces are conspiring … [Read more...] about Foreign Groups Fear China Oversight Plan