In Delhi, space for dissent shrinks as police pressure venues hosting civil society events
Zafar Aafaq | 10 June 2023 | Scroll.in
At the Press Club in New Delhi on Friday. | Umar Khalid/Facebook
Around 9 pm on Thursday, Delhi-based activist Nadeem Khan shared a poster with journalists on WhatsApp asking them to attend an event marking 1,000 days of the incarceration of activist Umar Khalid. Khalid has been behind bars since September 13, 2020, under the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, for his alleged involvement in the Delhi riots earlier that year. The poster titled “Democracy, Dissent and Censorship: A Discussion by Concerned Citizens” said the event was scheduled for 3 pm on Friday. The venue: the Press Club of India at Raisina Road in New Delhi.
Only days earlier, Khan had sent out a similar poster for the event, but with a different venue: the Gandhi Peace Foundation at Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg near ITO in the national capital. The poster, too, had a slightly different title: “Dissent Under Trial: 1000 days of Injustice”. But on Thursday, the IP Estates Police Station wrote to the office-bearers of the Gandhi Peace Foundation, a charitable trust, telling them to cancel the booking for the event, according to a copy of the letter accessed by Scroll.