A threat to our security

Back in June and July, RNZ broke the story that the SIS had collaborated with foreign intelligence agencies to burgle the embassies of friendly nations in the 1980's. The burglaries violated international (and arguably New Zealand) law. And now at least one of them is looking at taking legal action over it:

Iran is threatening legal action against New Zealand after learning the Security Intelligence Service (SIS), in a joint operation with the CIA, broke into its Wellington embassy to plant bugs in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

India has also hit back at an SIS operation that occurred during the same era, demanding New Zealand's foreign ministry investigate an SIS break-in where code books were photographed and passed on to Britain's MI6.

From the article, it is clear that these raids - carried out at the behest of foreign powers - have damaged our relations with these countries. Which is ironic, given that the usual definitions of "national security" include concerns about international relations. I guess it turns out that the SIS was the real threat to our national security all along.

Sedition in India

India is the world's largest democracy. But under prime minister Narendra Modi it has become increasingly undemocratic, with police increasingly stifling dissent. And now that has reached its nadir with a group of school children questioned and their teachers arrested for sedition for staging a play which criticised government policy:

Days after a sedition case was slapped against a school in Karnataka, its headmistress and a student's mother have been arrested for the alleged involvement in staging of a drama portraying Prime Minister Narendra Modi in poor light over the CAA and NRC, police said on Friday.

The police action came after they questioned the two women, a few staff members of the Shaheen School in the district headquarters town of Bidar and students on Thursday.

They were produced before a court which remanded them to judicial custody, police said adding further investigation was on.

The drama was staged by students of fourth, fifth and sixth standard on January 21.

A sedition case was booked by police on January 26 against the school, along with some other sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) on January 26, based on a complaint from social worker Neelesh Rakshyal.

This is like something from the era of absolute monarchy, and it is appalling that it is happening in a supposedly democratic state like India. But that's what happens if you leave colonial laws like this lying around: governments use them.

New Fisk

Israel is playing a big role in India’s escalating conflict with Pakistan

No freedom of speech in India

Criticising the prime Minister is considered the duty of the press in New Zealand. But in "democratic" India, it's a "threat to national security":

An Indian journalist has been jailed for a year after he criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Facebook, in the latest example of what critics claim is a clampdown on free speech.

Kishorechandra Wangkhem was arrested last month in the remote northeastern state of Manipur under a draconian law that allows authorities to detain anyone for up to a year without trial.

The 39-year-old television journalist is accused of posting an "inflammatory" social media video in November, in which he accused Modi and state chief minister Biren Singh's government of promoting rightwing Hindu ideology in the region.

Local media said he called Singh a "puppet" of Modi and of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a hardline Hindu group and ideological mentor of Modi's ruling party.

Authorities said the arrest was made to "prevent him from acting in any matter prejudicial to the security of the state".

And he's not the only one. Call the Prime Minister a dog, get arrested. Call him a thief, get charged with sedition. Neither would be considered a criminal matter in New Zealand.

if the "world's largest democracy" wants to keep that name, it needs to recognise basic political rights, including freedom of the press and the right to free speech. Until it does that, its just a shitty despotism in democratic fancy dress.

Progress in India

The Indian Supreme Court has decriminalised homosexuality:

A five-judge bench of the country’s highest court ruled on Thursday that a 160-year old law banning sex “against the order of nature” amounted to discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and was unconstitutional.

“Sexual orientation is one of the many natural phenomena,” said the Indian chief justice, Dipak Mishra, in his decision. “Any discrimination on basis of sexual orientation amounts to violation of fundamental rights.”

“History owes an apology to members of the community for the delay in ensuring their rights,” wrote another judge on the bench, Indu Malhotra.

This is great news. But obviously this is only the first step. India has 160 years of British-imposed bigotry to overcome, and that's not going to end overnight. But it is a start, and a good one.

Sedition in India

Last weekend Amnesty International held a meeting in the Indian city of Bangalore to discuss human rights abuses by Indian forces in Kashmir. During the meeting, some of the attendees began calling for "Azadi" - freedom. So naturally, they're all being charged with sedition:

Amnesty India's project manager Arijit Sen said a right-wing student group lodged a complaint, and police filed charges, known in India as a first incident report, or FIR.

The FIR reportedly mentions a number of offences, including sedition, unlawful assembly, rioting and promoting enmity.

I can think of no better example of what sedition laws are for: to suppress criticism and dissent of an authoritarian, nationalist government. And its a perfect example of why such laws are incompatible with democracy and need to be repealed.

Freedom of information: A good idea from India

One of the better ideas for freedom of information implemented overseas is disclosure logs - agencies posting requests and responses publicly, allowing performance to be monitored and reducing repeat requests. This is widespread in Australia and the UK, but poorly implemented in New Zealand. But now India has taken the idea a step further, with a single, nationwide disclosure-log:

All Indian government agencies have been told to post online their replies to Right to Information Act requests by the end of the month.

The ministry overseeing the administration of the Indian RTI Act on Oct. 21 announced a new website feature that will allow placement of replies on the RTI Online system.

Agencies were instructed to contact the Department of Personnel & Training (DOPT) for directions on the system upgrade. A one page memo by Sandeep Jain says the goal is to implement the policy by Oct. 31.

[Requests which include personal information won't be included]

The utility of the system will depend greatly on searchability and how good agencies are at tagging releases. But these are not difficult problems. And the advantages are huge. For a start, it will enable the collection of national statistics, not just about numbers, but also about the amount and type of information released. It will also allow appeal authorities to spot problems - e.g. if an agency is consistently misinterpreting the law, or making dubious withholding decisions. And of course its a huge benefit to journalists, academics and historians examining government policy.

We should do this here. It wouldn't require a law change, just a decision by the government to develop (or acquire) the software and fund the server. And the improvement in openness would be tremendous.

Sedition in India

On 18 August, an Indian man refused to stand for the playing of the national anthem in the cinema. He has now been charged with sedition, insulting the Indian national flag and Constitution, and preventing the singing of the national anthem. He faces a life sentence if convicted.

This shows us what sedition laws are really used for: suppressing dissent and enforcing mandatory displays of loyalty. They are an affront to freedom of expression and an affront to the basic right to disagree with the government. The fact that India is still applying them shows that it is a backward nation which does not respect basic political freedoms.

Sedition: Absurdity in India

Those who support sedition laws justify them on the need to protect the state from traitors and terrorists. In practice, such laws are used to criminalise opposition to the government of the day. But in India, its gone from the evil to the absurd, with 67 Kashmiri students charged with sedition for cheering for the wrong cricket team:

The police in northern India have filed sedition charges against 67 Kashmiri students after some of them cheered for the Pakistani cricket team during a televised match with India on Sunday night.

The charges were filed Tuesday following an official complaint against the students by Manzoor Ahmed, vice chancellor of Swami Vivekanand Subharti University in Meerut, according to M. M. Baig, a Meerut police official. In addition to sedition charges, the students were charged with “instigating hate between two communities.”

And that's what sedition is at its heart: a means of enforcing public loyalty to governments which deserve none.

The charges have now been dropped, but the students have been indefinitely suspended from their university. Freedom of speech? Not in India.

Horrific

Village life in India: if you pursue a relationship with the "wrong" man, your village elders will have you gang-raped and call it "justice":

A 20-year-old woman has been raped in public by as many as 12 men on the orders of tribal elders in a village in eastern India, according to local police.

The attack, in Birbhum district about 120 miles from Kolkata, was a punishment for an “unauthorised” relationship with a man from another village and the woman's subsequent failure to pay a 50,000 rupee (£490) fine, local media reports said.

“According to the woman, the [village head] summoned her and her [lover] on Monday and detained them through the day and night. After her family said they could not pay the fine, the [head] allegedly ordered the mass rape on Tuesday,” police superintendant C Sudhakar told The Hindustan Times newspaper.

For once, I have no words. Actually, no, I have a few: this misogynistic, semi-feudal rural culture which treats women as property, seeks to dictate intensely personal matters to them, and enforces its will with barbaric punishments is fundamentally incompatible with basic human rights and freedoms. It needs to be destroyed.

More blowback

Another example of a US business losing a lucrative foreign contract because of NSA spying:

The Commission Election of India (CEI) has decided not to select Google as a partner to create an online voter registration tool that would also provide information about voting locations and card numbers.

[...]

Citing unnamed CEI officials, Reuters reported that Google was dropped because the company had not offered any major improvements. Also, the company's services were declined given strained relations between India and the US over a new diplomatic spat and previous concerns of surveillance and spying in the wake of the Snowden disclosures.

I guess they didn't want the US to be able to use their voter registration database for "targeting" drone strikes.

Sedition in India

Aseem Trivedi is an Indian cartoonist. He runs a website, Cartoons against corruption on which he posts pointed political cartoons attacking India's corrupt political system. For this, he has been charged with sedition and "insulting national symbols" (the article says "treason", but other sources identify the clause in the Indian Penal Code, and its sedition). If convicted, he could be sentenced to life imprisonment.

I can't think of a more perfect example of why such laws need to be erased - and I'm very glad that we managed to do it here.

Backfired

On Tuesday I posted about the case of Anna Hazare, and Indian anti-corruption activist who was arrested (along with 1300 of his followers) for attempting to stage a public hunger strike against corruption. The government clearly hoped that this would shut down his protest. Instead, it has turned it into a movement, with anti-corruption protests breaking out across India. Last night they attempted to wiggle out of their mistake by releasing Hazare, but he refused to leave jail until permission was granted for his protest. And now, the government has been forced to back down on that too.

Its a wonderful example of how people can change things if they stand up to the government. And hopefully, with the momentum that has already been built up, India will get a real anti-corruption law, rather than the put-off the government was planning.

No freedom of protest in India

Anna Hazare is an Indian anti-corruption activist. He had planned an indefinite public hunger strike to protest the Indian government's failure to deal with corruption. So, the government arrested him. Then, just to prove their point, they arrested 1300 of his followers.

The pretext is of course "public order". Apparently the Indian authorities believe that a peaceful sit-down protest is the same as a riot, which must be suppressed. But the natural conclusion is that they don't like what Hazare is saying and want to shut him up, that they are dirty and have something to hide.

The good news is that freedom of expression (including the right to protest) is affirmed in the Indian Constitution. Now we'll get to see if that document actually means anything, or if it will be ignore dby those in power to protect their own corrupt interests.

An alarming alliance

So, John Key goes to India seeking progress on a free-trade agreement, and comes back with closer defence ties. Its completely out of the blue, and quite alarming. India is a nuclear-armed nation and one of the few non-parties (along with Israel, Pakistan, and North Korea) to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty - closer to a rogue state than a good international citizen. it has an ongoing conflict with Pakistan, and a long-term rivalry with China. And we have just taken sides in those conflicts. Woo-hoo!

But quite apart from questions of ethics and interests, there's also a question of democracy. To put it bluntly, we weren't asked about this. The government did not say "we're looking at closer military ties with India, what do you all think of that?" They didn't seek a mandate for buying into a possible nuclear conflict and the superpower rivalry of the late 21st century. Instead, they did it over our heads, and without our consent. This is par for the course for our foreign policy, which regards the people of New Zealand as dirty peasants to be ignored rather than citizens to be obeyed, but it means that their deals have no democratic mandate, and thus no legitimacy.

This is not the 18th century, when inbred absolute monarchs could cut deals amongst themselves without reference to their people. We're supposed to be a modern democracy, and we should act like one. That means seeking consent for foreign policy as well as domestic. That means asking us first what we want to do and who we want to pursue alliances with. Democracy does not stop at the water's edge. And if our government thinks it does, then they're no better than those eighteenth century hereditary dictators.

Cablegate: India a torture state

Today's big Wikileaks story: India is engaged in systematic torture in Kashmir. A cable - 05NEWDELHI2606 - reports on a conversation between a US diplomat and a representative of the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC), which monitors prisoners. The horrifying statistics:

ICRC staff made 177 visits to detention centers in [Jammu and Kashmir] and elsewhere (primarily the Northeast) between 2002-2004, meeting with 1491 detainees, 1296 of which were private interviews. XXXXXXXXXXXX considered this group a representative sample of detainees in Kashmir, but stressed that they had not been allowed access to all detainees. In 852 cases, detainees reported what ICRC refers to as "IT" (ill-treatment): 171 persons were beaten, the remaining 681 subjected to one or more of six forms of torture: electricity (498 cases), suspension from ceiling (381), "roller" (a round metal object put on the thighs of sitting person, which prison personnel then sit on, crushing muscles -- 294); stretching (legs split 180 degrees -- 181), water (various forms -- 234), or sexual (302). Numbers add up to more than 681, as many detainees were subjected to more than one form of IT. ICRC stressed that all the branches of the security forces used these forms of IT and torture.

And we're negotiating a free trade deal with them. Clearly, our government doesn't regard the systematic use of torture as any sort of barrier to good diplomatic relations or free trade. Makes you proud to be a kiwi, doesn't it?

Sedition in India

In October, Indian author Arundhati Roy gave a speech [PDF] in New Delhi in which she said "Kashmir has never been an integral part of India". Thanks to those words, she has been charged with sedition, and is potentially facing life imprisonment.

Its important to note that it is not the government doing this. The charges have been filed at the behest of militant Hindu nationalists, who went to court to force the police to accept their complaint. Which shows you how disreputable the whole idea of sedition is: an instrument used by those with strong views (in this case nationalists) to persecute anyone who disagrees with them.

Such a law has no place in a civilised democracy. New Zealand repealed its sedition law in 2007. If India wants to take its place as a respected world power, it must do the same.

Watchlist insanity comes to New Zealand

It seems that the insanity of anti-terror watchlists has arrived in New Zealand:

A 2-year-old New Zealand boy and his Indian-born mother were barred from India and, on their return to Auckland, delayed for four hours and questioned after their names appeared on a terrorism blacklist.

After a 20-hour journey to New Delhi, Shubhneet Kaur, a New Zealand citizen from Manukau, and her son, Bachint Vir Singh, were turned back to New Zealand despite holding valid tourist visas for India.

They pair arrived back in Auckland three days after their Monday evening departure - only to face a Customs interrogation about why they were on India's list of possible terrorists.

"My wife and baby boy were treated like criminals," said Ranvir Lali Singh, a builder, justice of the peace and secretary of the Auckland Sikh Society.

You would think that any reasonable person faced with a 2-year old "terrorist" would immediately realise its a false positive. But Customs and the SIS aren't paid to be reasonable, and as in the US, no-one will want to be the person who lets a Dangerous Terrorist walk free, or risk losing their job for displaying sanity. And so the lives of innocent people are ruined again because of risk aversion and arse-covering by those with power...

(As for the obvious question - how the hell can India deny entry to someone who was born there? - unfortunately unlike New Zealand they see citizenship as exclusive and do not permit dual citizenship).

Climate change: India goes solar

While the developed world wrings its hands over climate change and comes up with new excuses for inaction, the developing world is acting. First we have had a string of Pacific island nations - Tuvalu, Tokelau, Niue - setting 100% reduction targets. And now we have India, one of the world's largest emitters but still a developing nation and not responsible for the problem, setting itself an extremely ambitious solar energy target:

Although India has virtually no solar power now, the plan envisages the country generating 20GW from sunlight by 2020. Global solar capacity is predicted to be 27GW by then, according to the International Energy Agency, meaning India expects to be producing 75% of this within just 10 years.

[...]

The plan provoked prolonged discussion at a meeting of the national climate change council in New Dehli yesterday, which resulted in major changes from early drafts. The draft document had envisaged a government subsidy of around $20bn (£11bn), and falling production costs, in order to achieve a long-term 2040 target of 200GW of solar power.

20GW by 2020 is 5% of their expected electricity generation. 200GW by 2040 is about 20%. That's an awful lot of carbon dioxide they won't be emitting. I'm not sure if it will be enough, but as with their massive shift to wind, its certainly an enormous step in the right direction.

There is a catch, of course: India expects the developed world to keep its word and help fund this massive downward shift in their emissions pathway. But if that's the price of reaching a global deal which eventually brings India in, then it seems worth it to me.

The world's biggest election

India, the world's biggest democracy, goes to the polls today in the first round of its five-stage parliamentary elections. Voters across 17 states will elect MPs for 124 constituencies. Other parts of India will follow every week until mid-May. The scale is staggering - all up around 400 million people (out of 714 million eligible voters) will cast a ballot, choosing between 200 parties. Unfortunately, there's a down side: they use FPP, with wildly varying constituency sizes. Looking at the 2004 results, winning a seat takes anywhere from 150,000 to 700,000 votes, depending on which state its in and how well they did in the struggle for federal representation. It's broadly democratic (and the realities of a federal system means that disproportionality is unavoidable) - but its a long, long way from modern best practice.

While the elections will take a month, all the votes will apparently be counted on May 16th, with Parliament reconvening shortly afterwards. So the people who vote today will have to wait a month to see how it went. But the alternative is the US problem of people's votes being influenced by the results of earlier elections - except lasting a whole month rather than the few hours between New York and Hawaii.

As for who will win, the answer is "no-one". In a country as large and diverse as India, no single party can win an overall majority (at least not anymore - Congress used to win majorities in the 80's, but the rise of the BJP has ended that). So inevitably there will be a coalition. The three major groupings are the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance, and a "third front" of communists and regional parties. As for which will come out on top, we'll have to wait a month...