{"id":260,"date":"2004-03-01T21:43:41","date_gmt":"2004-03-02T01:43:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/jaskaran\/2004\/03\/01\/amnesty-intl-press-release-on-gujara"},"modified":"2004-03-01T21:43:41","modified_gmt":"2004-03-02T01:43:41","slug":"amnesty-intl-press-release-on-gujarat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jaskaran\/2004\/03\/01\/amnesty-intl-press-release-on-gujarat\/","title":{"rendered":"Amnesty Int’l Press Release on Gujarat"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Amnesty International has issued a <\/FONT>press release<\/FONT><\/A> on the second anniversary of the Gujarat pogroms against Muslims:<\/FONT><\/P>
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“Two years after the massacres took place, most of the victims are still demanding justice, but they are not being heard,” Amnesty International said. “Despite the efforts of the human rights community and the scrutiny of the Supreme Court on some of the trials, the Government of Gujarat and elements of the criminal justice system in the state seem to be colluding in denying justice to the victims. This attitude reopens the victims’ wounds every day.”<\/EM><\/FONT><\/P><\/BLOCKQUOTE>
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The press release highlights the now-familiar pattern of impunity <\/FONT>that has long been a regular feature<\/FONT><\/A> of such incidents and campaigns of carnage against minorities in India:<\/FONT><\/P>
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The Best Bakery case, first of a few key cases to arrive at trial stage, is a blatant example of how elements of the criminal justice system are often backing each other in the state to ensure impunity for the perpetrators of the violence. It appears that the investigation was defective, the public prosecutor failed to adequately represent the victims, the witnesses were not protected from threats and the judge ended up mechanically acquitting the accused. <\/EM><\/FONT><\/P>
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The entire trial was conducted in an atmosphere of hostility to the victims’ family. The acquittal verdict was shockingly upheld by the High Court. On that occasion, the legitimate activities of human rights defenders who supported witnesses were termed “not permissible under the law”. The basic principles of fair trial and of due process were turned upside-down in this case and the entire proceedings turned into a farcical exercise.<\/EM><\/FONT><\/P><\/BLOCKQUOTE>
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The full text of the press release is <\/FONT>here<\/FONT><\/A>.<\/FONT><\/P><\/p>\n

Amnesty Int’l Press Release on Gujarat …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amnesty International has issued a press release on the second anniversary of the Gujarat pogroms against Muslims: “Two years after the massacres took place, most of the victims are still demanding justice, but they are not being heard,” Amnesty International said. “Despite the efforts of the human rights community and the scrutiny of the Supreme […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1193,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jaskaran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jaskaran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jaskaran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jaskaran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1193"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jaskaran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jaskaran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jaskaran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jaskaran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/jaskaran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}