From: amnesty@amnesty.oil.ca
Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2000 03:27:21 -0400
Message-Id: <200004050727.DAA12327@amnesty.oil.ca>
To: amnesty-L@oil.ca
Subject: INDIA: Abuse of the Public Safety Act in Jammu and Kashmir
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* News Release Issued by the International Secretariat of Amnesty
International *
News Service 065/00
AI INDEX: ASA 20/13/00
5 April 2000

Abuse of the Public Safety Act in Jammu and Kashmir

Following the release of three leaders of the All Parties Hurriyet
Conference (APHC), Amnesty International today called on the Government
of Jammu and Kashmir to either immediately release the other 22 leaders
or charge them with a recognizable criminal offence and try them in a
regular court of law.

Recently released Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Abdul Gani Bhat and Maulana
Abass Ansari, were among 25 leaders of the APHC detained last September
and October under the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act (PSA). They
were detained after calling for a boycott of elections.

The arbitrary arrest and detention of those peacefully voicing dissent
appears to have become more widespread in Jammu and Kashmir with the PSA
increasingly being used to punish those who speak out against the
government.

Those still in detention include Muhammad Yasin Malik who suffers from a
heart condition and high blood pressure and is denied regular access to
specialized medical attention. The APHC leaders have also been denied
prompt and regular access to family members and lawyers. In the first
few weeks of detention, while being shifted from police station to
police station, they were held incommunicado.

Amnesty International is particularly concerned that the terms of
detention under the PSA are made open-ended without explanation and that
there are many cases of activists being held for years without recourse
to the judicial process. As most people detained under the PSA are
denied access to lawyers and family members, they also run a high risk
of being subjected to torture or ill-treatment.

Background
The justification provided for the detention of the APHC leadership
under the PSA, was that it would be a deterrent to carrying out "illegal
anti-national and subversive activities in the future ... which were
prejudicial to the security of the state".

The Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act of 1978 is the main law relating
to preventive detention in Jammu and Kashmir and permits administrative
detention without trial for a period of up to one year if a person is to
be prevented from acting in a manner deemed "prejudicial to the
maintenance of public order" or up to two years if their actions are
likely to be "prejudicial to the security of the State". The detention
orders of the APHC leadership brought under the PSA cited grounds of
activities being anti-national, subversive or prejudicial to the
security of the state.

Twenty-five writ petitions were filed in the High Court in Srinagar
during the first week of November which challenge the legality of the
detention orders. The next hearing is reportedly to be held in the High
Court of Jammu and Kashmir in Srinagar on 18 April 2000.

ENDS.../
Amnesty International, International Secretariat, 1 Easton Street,
WC1X 8DJ, London, United Kingdom
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