Delhi High Court Women Lawyers Forum Writes to Supreme Court Condemning Anti-Muslim Sloganeering at Jantar Mantar: FIR Filed Over Inciting Sloganeering At Janta Mantar
(Judicial Quest News Network)
A rally titled as Judo India (Unite India) held by Supreme Court and former Delhi BJP spokesman Ashwini Upadhyay, had hundred of people in attendance.
The Delhi Police has lodged an FIR over inciting sloganeering by a group of people at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar on Sunday.
CPI leaders and activists Annie Raja and Shabnam Hashmi have filed a complaint with the DCP, Parliament Street police station against the programme organised at Jantar Mantar on Sunday.
A video of the group chanting ‘Jai Shri Ram’ and anti-Muslim slogan surfaced on social media handles of journalists. Police are now identifying the men who were seen in the video chanting anti-Muslim.
Yesterday the Delhi High Court Women Lawyers Forum has addressed a letter to the Registrar of the Supreme Court condemning the allegedly inflammatory slogans raised by Supreme Court Lawyer Ashwini Upadhyay.
The forum’s letter highlighted that the slogans amounted to extreme hate speech against the Muslims and that it incited violence against the community.
These slogans whipping up hatred against the Muslims is not protected speech under the Indian Constitution, and is prima facie hate speech. The speeches made at the rally must not be confused with the right to freedom of dissenting or critical speech. The speeches at the rally were directly and explicitly invoking violence against a religious community, and the audience was charged and espousing violence. In Rwanda, the systematic hate speech against the ethnic minority, Tutsis, enabled the 1994 Genocide.
The letter further added that the inflammatory slogans were, against the law laid down by the Supreme Court of India in Amish Devgan V. Union of India and Rangarajan v. P Jag Jeevan Ram and Ors.It is further pointed out that the rally was organised in violation of the
The videos of the above incident, are shocking, and cannot be dismissed lightly. The rally was organised in violation of the prevalent Covid guidelines of the Delhi Disaster Management Authority. Moreover, persons who indulge in such grave criminal conduct in the heart of the national capital should not be allowed to continue with impunity. We condemn the above incident in the strongest possible terms, and urge all law-abiding citizens to raise their voice against such hate mongers. We also urge the various authorities including the Bar Council to take note of this incident, and immediately take appropriate action so that respect for ‘rule of law’ and our salient constitutional principles can be upheld.
Furthermore, the visual also disclosed how the rally was organised with an utter disregard to Prevalent COVID-19 guidelines.
The letter also Advocated that people indulging in such grave criminal conducting the heart of the national capital should not be allowed to continue with impunity, thereby urging all law-abiding citizen s to raise their voice against such ‘hate mongers’
The Forum called the incident ‘shocking ‘ and conveyed its strong disapproval of the same, thereby seeking immediate appropriate action
