By TCN News,
New Delhi: The Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners has condemned Central Government’s move to silence voices of dissent on the issue of Kashmir. The committee had organized the program where separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Gilani and writer Arundhati Roy had given controversial speeches last week.
“Ever since the historic convention in Delhi titled “Azadi: The Only Way” organised by the CRPP, the media is abuzz with reports of possible cases of ‘sedition’ against some of the main speakers in the convention. The names that are being cited keeps changing with the imagination of the concerned media houses. The hype has become so high that now rather than discussing the serious issues pertaining to the political aspirations of the people of Jammu & Kashmir that was deliberated by one and all in the convention the issue has got subverted into a conflated, convenient binary of that what is euphemistically called as ‘seditious’ or ‘non-seditious’” the committee said in a statement yesterday.
“We at the CRPP strongly condemn these deliberate designs of the Indian government to target writer activist Arundhati Roy and Chairperson, All Parties Hurriyat Conference, Mr. Syed Ali Shah Geelani for expressing their views which are grounded in the bedrock of history of the relentless struggle of the people of Jammu & Kashmir for their Right to Self-Determination that they have kept alive for decades through their sacrifices. We strongly demand that instead of trying to scuttle the voices of sanity the Government of India should come forthright in addressing the issues that everyone in Jammu & Kashmir is today fearlessly talking about, said the statement of the committee that is headed by Gurusharan Singh (President), Amit Bhattacharyya (Secretary General), SAR Geelani (Working President).