By TCN News
New Delhi: Trivandrum-based Shahnawas, an advocate and human rights activist was arrested on May 1st, 2012 by the Crime Branch of Kerala. Apparently his arrest is for Shahnawas involvement in leaking of official communication that showed the email surveillance practiced by the state but activists in a statement alleged that is more to do with the Tribunal hearing the case for continuing the ban on SIMI.
Shahnnawas has been assisting the lawyers appearing on behalf of SIMI before the Tribunal.
Full statement:
The undersigned condemn in strongest terms the arrest of Advocate Shahnawas, a leading human rights activist of Kerala. Advocate Shahnawas, who lives and practices in Trivandrum, was arrested on 1st May 2012, and his office raided and his files seized by the Crime Branch of the state. Ostensibly, his arrest has been made by the “Hi-tech Cell” of the Kerala Crime Branch for conspiring to leak intelligence communication in the infamous Email surveillance scandal that rocked the state a few months ago—where a leading daily of the state has alleged that the Hi-tech Cell was snooping on the emails of nearly 250 Muslim individuals and institutions. It cannot escape our attention that the arrest and raid were made on the eve of the SIMI Tribunal sitting in Kerala. Advocate Shahnawas has been assisting the SIMI lawyers in the Tribunal for the past many years and was also due to assist now.
Shahnwas’s arrest comes after Ghalib’s verses were blamed for instigating members of the banned group SIMI and a children’s magazine,Umang published by the Delhi Urdu Academy was cited as incriminating material in an affidavit seeking extension of the ban on SIMI. This follows the condemning of dozens of organizations, including one that hosted AIMPLB convention in Mumbai, as ‘fronts for SIMI’.
The arrest of Advocate Shahnawas is an attack on the very process of law and an attempt to stifle the voice of dissent. Targeting and implicating lawyers in spurious cases encroaches upon the right to access legal aid without fear. It is a clear attempt to also demoralize and intimidate Advocate Shahnwas’s clients—many of them victims of a communal witch-hunt.
We demand that he be released immediately and all his files and work related documents be returned without any conditions.
Sd/-
Abu Zafar, Journalist
Ajit Sahi, Senior Journalist
Anil Tharayath Varghese, Delhi Solidarity Group
BT Venketesh, Advocate, Bangalore
Feroze Khan Ghazi, South Asian Minorities Lawyers Association (SAMLA)
Gauhar Iqbal, Social Activist, Delhi
Hany Babu, Delhi University
Imran Ali, Advocate, Delhi
Jawahar Raja, Advocate, Delhi
Jenny Rowena, Delhi University
Kashif-ul-Huda, Editor, TwoCircles.net
Kavita Srivastava, PUCL
Mahtab Alam, Human Rights activist and journalist
Mansi Sharma, activist
Mayur Suresh, Advocate, Delhi
Mukul Dube, Columnist and Writer
N.D. Pancholi, Advocate, Delhi
Savad Rahman, Journalist, Kerala
Shabnam Hashmi, ANHAD
Shankar Gopalakrishnan, Campaign for Survival and Dignity (in individual capacity)
Seema Mustafa, senior journalist
SQR Illyas, Welfare Party
Trideep Pais, Advocate, Delhi
Zafarul-Islam Khan, Editor, The Milli Gazette
Released by Manisha Sethi, Adeel Mehdi, Ahmed Sohaib, Sanghamitra Misra and others for Jamia Teachers’ Solidarity Association (JTSA)