Human rights activists on Saturday called for the need to carry forward the work done by Father Stan Swamy and described certain present-day laws as draconian.
They were speaking at the launch of the book Fr. Stan Swamy A Maoist or A Martyr? written by activist and academician Prakash Louis.
Father Stan, 84, who was arrested last year under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act in connection with the Elgar Parishad case, died in a Mumbai hospital on July 5.
Trade unionist Ashim Roy said that “each of us have a bit of Father Stan in us”.
“Let us make it big,” he said.
Roy said that if the situation needs to be changed then the law needs to be changed, and for that, the government needs to be changed. He said what is happening today is different from what happened during Emergency. Then, the government feared the ones who were behind the bars and they were called political detainees, and now those arrested are called terrorists.
Eminent lawyer Mihir Desai recalled a phone call by Father Stan in which the latter asked him where is Bhima Koregaon. Desai said that it becomes difficult for a person who has never heard about the place or gone to the place if he is arrested under UAPA Act. There is no other such draconian law pan India, he said.
Desai said that though Father Stan was taken to government hospital for check-ups for his fever, RTPCR test was not done for a week, to check whether he had COVID-19 or not. By the time he was admitted to Holy Family Hospital in Mumbai, his condition had already deteriorated and he could not survive.
He said that their aim now is to ensure that his name is cleared off from all the charges. “We do not want a stigma associated with his name,” he said.
Environmental activist Rohit Prajapati alleged that the government fears that the death of Father Stan is not a full stop but a comma. He said we were experiencing “open and shameless fascism”.
Human rights activist Father Cedric Prakash recalled how Father Stan trained hundreds of youths. He said that the latter was always at war (non-violent) with the evil forces in the country.
Mufti Abdul Qayyum of Ahmedabad, who was arrested in connection with the attack on Akshardham Temple and later released after 11 years behind bars on Supreme Court order, spoke about the trouble faced by fellow prisoners, and his experiences.