Paris-Geneva-Brussels, October 15, 2024 - The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (FIDH-OMCT), is saddened by the passing of Indian academic and human rights defender Gokarakonda Naga (G.N.) Saibaba on October 12, 2024, at the age of 57. In March 2024, G.N. Saibaba was released from prison after 10 years of judicial harassment and seven years of continuous arbitrary detention in conditions that appeared to have amounted to torture and ill-treatment.
G.N. Saibaba had been arbitrarily arrested on May 9, 2014 in Delhi, and sentenced to life imprisonment on March 7, 2017 on charges of conspiracy and membership of a terrorist organisation under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), India’s main anti-terrorism legislation. He was released from Nagpur Central Jail on March 7, 2024, after being acquitted by the Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High Court. While in prison, his health significantly deteriorated, in part due to a lack of timely medical care and inadequate arrangements for his pre-existing disabilities, including his being in a wheelchair. In 2018, his left arm was paralysed due to nerve damage and a lack of adequate medical attention.
“We are heartbroken to hear of G.N. Saibaba’s untimely passing and extend our deepest condolences to his family and colleagues. He should never have been incarcerated and the ill-treatment he received in detention will forever be a dark stain on India’s human rights record,” said Alice Mogwe, President of FIDH.
G.N. Saibaba was a former professor at the University of Delhi, a poet, and a well-known campaigner for the rights of oppressed communities, especially Dalit and indigenous communities, in India. He had spoken out against the violence and discrimination faced by these communities, especially in mineral-rich central India. He also campaigned extensively against serious human rights abuses by state backed private militias and government security forces, including killings, torture, and forced displacement, in Chhattisgarh State since mid-2005.
“Just like Father Stan Swamy before him, G.N. Saibaba passed away because silencing dissent is more important to the current government in India than following the rule of law. The UAPA was used against him, as it is used against so many other human rights defenders in India, as a tool of repression and with that came a complete disregard for his rights to humane treatment and due process,” said Gerald Staberock, Secretary General of OMCT.
The UAPA is a regressive anti-terrorism legislation that is frequently used to arrest and detain activists and human rights defenders in India. The UAPA was amended in July 2019, significantly increasing the scope of the law by allowing the authorities to designate individuals, and not just organisations, as terrorists under its Sections 35 and 36. The Observatory is aware of at least 61 cases of HRDs who have been jailed under the UAPA and/or terror/security laws since 2018.
The Observatory denounces in the strongest terms the ill treatment to which G.N. Saibaba was subjected while in detention, which might have contributed to his untimely death, and calls on the Indian authorities to provide reparations for his arbitrary detention, torture and ill-treatment. The Observatory further calls on the Indian authorities to guarantee an enabling environment for human rights defenders and civil society to operate freely, including by releasing all human rights defenders arbitrarily detained in the country.
