Amnesty International Shutters Offices in India, Citing Government Attacks

By Sameer Yasir and Hari Kumar, The New York Times

30 September 20

The organization’s premises have been raided and its bank accounts frozen. The actions, it says, are reprisals for criticizing the country’s human rights record.

he human rights organization Amnesty International said on Tuesday that it had ceased its operations in India and laid off its entire staff in response to a series of government reprisals including the freezing of its bank accounts.

Amnesty said that the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi had targeted the organization for years in response to its work exposing human rights violations in India. In recent months, the group has published reports on the Delhi police’s role in fomenting anti-Muslim violence and on the use of torture in Kashmir.

The Indian government said in a statement that the allegations from Amnesty were “unfortunate, exaggerated and far from the truth.” The organization has repeatedly violated local laws by circumventing the regulations under which foreign entities can receive donations from abroad, the government added.

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