As part of an India-wide police operation on 28 August, activists Sudha Bharadwaj, Vernon Gonsalves, Arun Ferreira, Gautam Navlakha and Varavara Rao were arrested and the homes of many more raided. Beforehand, on June 6,  five other activists had been arrested. They are all accused of being urban naxalites - that is, being active members of the Maoist guerrilla movement, which is engaged in an armed struggle in India. Accordingly, the draconian anti-terrorism law (UAPA) is applied.

The allegations include an involmenent in the January 2018 violence (Bhima Koregaon-Riots) near the city of Pune and that the arrested people had planned an attack on senior members of the ruling party. - The actual reason for these arrests however is the silencing of loud, critical voices.

All of the arrested of August 28 are well-known longtime activists. They had worked for and with workers, Dalits, Adivasis (indigenous communities) and other marginalized communities and had repeatedly denounced repressive actions and human rights violations.

One of the arrested is trade unionist and lawyer Sudha Bharadwaj. The following video documents voices and protests from her working area in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh. She has been active in the trade union movement Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha Mazdoor Karyakarta Committee since the 1990s. As a lawyer, she has repeatedly denounced gross human rights abuses perpetrated by state security forces, and she has fought land grabbing.

For background information about the union movement Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha visit Sanhati, see: http://sanhati.com/ (Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha)
For updates about the recent repression visit: The Wire (section: rights)
Contact to a solidarity group in Germany: saline [at] riseup [dot] net