A group of civil rights activists and organisations on Tuesday wrote an “open letter” to Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud on the alleged suppression of free speech, peaceful protests and rallies by police, leading to the stifling of democratic dissent in the country.

The letter alleged that peaceful protests were met with fake encounters, abductions and demolition of houses belonging to the protesters by police and other government instrumentalities.

“Even when some of the most oppressed and exploited sections of the country, the Adivasis of Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra etc., engaged in prolonged peaceful mass movements against mining-based displacement and rapid militarisation of their lands, the people are met with fake encounters, abductions and uprooting of their homes for exercising their democratic rights, demanding fair Gram Sabhas and the implementation of the Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas (PESA) Act, 1996,” the letter, a copy of which was mailed to The Telegraph, stated.

“From Srinagar to Silger, all democratic dissent is attacked with varied degrees of violence and branded with the tag of Maoists and separatists. Journalists… arrested, people being violently displaced for the sake of corporate interests, internet shutdown bringing life back to the dark ages, academics in jail and retired judges forbidden from speaking in the country’s capital, where is the safety valve for democracy?” it asked.

In Chhattisgarh’s Silger, youth and the women had held one of the longest sit-ins to protest police firing on Adivasis opposing “rapacious mining and militarisation of their homes”.

The 135 signatories to the letter include Deepak Kumar, a political activist with the Campaign Against State Repression (CASR); G. Haragopal, a retired professor of the Hyderabad University and an activist; the Telangana Civil Liberties Commission; S.R. Darapuri, a retired IPS officer; the All India People’s Front; Manoranjan Mohanty, a retired professor of Delhi University; Nandita Narain, an associate professor of St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University; N.D. Pancholi, advocate at the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL); Shamsul Islam, author and retired faculty member of Delhi University; and A.S. Vasantha Kumari, a civil liberty activist.

The letter said the most recent incident occurred on December 10, 2023, when the world celebrated the 75th anniversary of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights as “Human Rights Day”. The signatories alleged that Parliament Street Police Station denied permission for a gathering to mark this occasion.

They alleged that though permission was sought 12 days in advance by the Campaign Against State Repression (CASR) — a coalition of 40 democratic progressive organisations — the organisers were informed about the cancellation of the permission less than 14 hours before the scheduled event.

The writers also expressed dismay at how a public discussion on March 15, 2023, organised by the CASR to address issues such as the “Media Blackout in Kashmir”, suppression of the free press, freedom of speech and expression, and the attack on journalists in the Valley had to be cancelled. They said the police cancelled the permission for the event with a two-hour notice and barricaded the venue at Gandhi Peace Foundation despite the fact that it was to be addressed by Justice Hussain Masoodi, a retired judge of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court, along with former legislators, renowned democratic rights activists and academics.

For a similar event, the “Bharat Bachao National Convention”, held at HKS Surjeet Bhavan in New Delhi, the organisers had to seek permission from the Delhi High Court after the Delhi police cancelled its permission and coerced the venue administration to scrap the bookings in March last year, the letter states.

According to the letter, police permission for all these events and many more had been cancelled citing vague arguments of “law & order/security”.

“Yet, the practices of the Delhi Police continue to push in the direction where democratic spaces are curtailed with impunity and the notions of liberties and dissent are attacked. When CASR sought permission for its gathering at Jantar Mantar, one of the historic spots of democratic gatherings for Indian democracy on 10th December, it was denied.

“When peaceful gatherings for civil discourse are sought at private venues, the police barricade the events and threaten the venue owners. When peaceful gatherings for democratic rights are sought at public spaces designated for such activities like Jantar Mantar, the permits are cancelled strategically at night to ensure no alternative is found. When these actions are protested by the people, we are assaulted, beaten with the butts of guns, detained, abducted and even threatened with our lives,” the letter said.

It added: “After all this, the women and LGBT persons who participated in the protests and gave their own contact details to the police received phone calls at their residences, not at the contacts they gave but directly to their families. Their family members were told by police officers to discourage their daughters from participating in protests and the police resorted to using patriarchy against adults to silence dissent.”