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'Journalists are prime targets'

International anti-torture day observed in city
Last Updated 29 June 2011, 17:32 IST

“Journalists are the prime target under the Unlawful Activities Act,” said eminent human rights activist and advocate B N Jagadish.

Addressing a gathering at the International anti-torture day meeting here on Wednesday, Jagadish said that the extent of violence had gone beyond comprehension. Government was trying to silence people , creating one issue to dilute another.

The system we were living in was a complex one, and violence and torture would naturally decline if people respected and followed the constitution, he said.   The meeting was organised jointly by National Confederation of Human Rights Organisation (NCHRO), Peoples Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) and National Alliance for Peoples Movement, Mysore(NAPM) in Kalamandira.

Democracy is becoming a police state where there is an undeclared emergency, said NAPM president Maj Gen (Retd) S G Vombatkere. Dissent and argument were essential for democracy.

With the government not tolerating any dissent , it is going against democracy, he added.He also warned of a future where the state would be run by corporates and so would be the police.Eminent legal expert C K N Raja also spoke at the meeting about the legality of torture and the provisions for torture and atrocities in the Indian Penal Code and said that conscious and enlightened citizens would always resist violence and torture irrespective of caste, creed or sex.

District president of PUCL T R Nataraj, Ashraf Annadi and others were present at the meeting.

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(Published 29 June 2011, 17:32 IST)

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