Kamal C. Chavara, a Malayalam writer and activist, was arrested on Decemberr 17 by Nadakavu police over a disrespectful post made on Facebook regarding the national anthem. The blogger is facing Sedition charges under Section 124(A) of the Indian Penal Code. The blogger, known by the alias Kamalsy Prana, was taken into custody from Kozhikode following a complaint made at Karunagalapalli Police station by Yuva Morcha, the youth wing of the Bharatiya Janata…
Sanal Edamaruku, a 61-year-old Indian man, was forced to flee India after being accused of blasphemy over exposing claimed “miracle” at a local church in Mumbai for being a fraud. Edamaruku has been living in Finland in the past 4 years to evade his arrest. Edamaruku, president of the Indian Rationalist Association, describes himself as a ‘miracle-buster’ who aims to demystify false superstitious beliefs.…
In the early hours of September 15, 2016, prominent atheist blogger and ‘freethinker’ Tarak Biswas was arrested at his home in West Bengal over a Facebook post which was considered critical of Islam. Mere minutes after his post was made, a First Information Report (or FIR) was filed by local Trinamool Congress leader Sanaullah Khan, demanding that the Howrah Police Commissionerate take action…
Katan Dixit, a young Indian activist, was arrested by local police after defying the government’s ban on the documentary India’s Daughter by unofficially screening it to 60 people in his village, using white bedsheets and borrowed equipment. Dixit used improvised equipment to show the banned documentary at the compound of his family in the village Roopdhanu, near the city Agra. The screening was made on International Women’s Day. The…
