A campaign is underway by certain organizations for the people of this country to endorse an appeal to the National Human Rights Commission to review the Citizenship Amendment Act. The appeal states, “We write to you to exercise Section 12 (d) of the Protection of Human Rights Act (PHRA) and undertake a review of the CAA.”
It adds, “CAA is fundamentally violative of Article 14, 15 and 21 of the Indian Constitution and it is only imperative that the NHRC, an ‘A’ accredited institution by the Global Alliance of the National Human Rights Institutions (GANHRI) and the apex human rights body in India, undertakes an independent review of the CAA, parameters based on the Indian Constitution and international human rights law.”
The appeal was made by Human Rights Defenders’ Alert – India (HRDA), Indian Social Action Forum (INSAF), United Against Hate (UAH) and supported by People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL). OpIndia readers would be aware that we have extensively investigated the background of the PUCL and discovered that they are intricately linked to the ‘Urban Naxals’ arrested in the Bhima Koregaon case and Maoists.
We have also reported in the past that PUCL is linked to the CDRO, an umbrella network of NGOs, that is connected to Islamic Separatists in Kashmir, Maoists and separatists in Manipur. Therefore, this should immediately raise alarm bells about the effort underway to intervene in the matter of CAA by these dubious NGOs.
INSAF
The Indian Social Action Forum (INSAF) is a dubious NGO that receives foreign funds from Christian missionary organizations abroad. Chitranjan Singh of PUCL-UP was its President between 2014-16 as per the information currently available on their website. It has received significant funds from the Evangelisches Missionswerk in Deutschland (EMW, Germany) and Bread for the World (henceforth, referred to as Bread), again, in Germany.
In the past, Bread has funded extensively an NGO, Equations, that helped publish a report that called the Amarnath Yatra a ‘militarized pilgrimage’. The same report was published by Equations in collaboration with JKCCS, another Kashmiri separatist organization that is affiliated to the CDRO. Bread has also donated heavily to the Human Rights Law Network (HRLN) that is actively running a campaign to abolish Indian sedition laws in collaboration with the CDRO and its numerous affiliated organizations. Not merely that, Colin Gonsalves, the founder of HRLN, even appeared in Court yesterday demanding a judicial inquiry into the police action to flush out ‘protesters’ from Jamia Milia Islamia University.
United Against Hate (UAH)
There’s an American organization with the same name but we cannot confirm whether United Against Hate in India is a branch of the American organization by the same name. Therefore, we shall proceed under the assumption that it’s a wholly separate and independent organization.
The organization has a Facebook page and Twitter handle and not a website of its own. Therefore, it’s hard to find information on it. But we did manage to find a report on the Huffington Post that gives a clue into its ideological orientation. The HuffPo report says, “Among the organisations part of the network that United Against Hate will tap into are the Bhim Army, Jamaat-e-Islami, Jamiat Ulema-e-hind, Jamaat-e-Islami and Alpsankhyak Adhikar.” The report also mentions that ‘Senior Advocate Sanjay Hegde’ is part of the initiative as well. United Against Hate also launched a toll-free number for ‘mob lynching’.
The President of Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind filed a review petition against the Ayodhya Verdict that paved the way for a Bhavya Ram Mandir at Ayodhya. The Kashmir unit of Jamaat-e-Islami was banned by the government and is suspected of funding the Hizbul Mujahideen while the Jamaat-e-Islami in other states have been protesting against the CAB. The Bhim Army is an organisation whose president has been arrested in the past for allegedly violating the model code of conduct during elections.
The Facebook page provides better insight into the network’s functioning. One of the two managers of the page is Syed Faizan Zaidi, who is either a student or alumni of Jamia Milia Islamia University as per his Facebook profile. He calls himself ‘Mujahid Faizan’. We cannot say for sure if ‘Mujahid’ is his actual name or part of his actual name but what we do know is that Mujahid is a participant of Jihad. And that is why organizations such as Indian Mujahideen have the word in their name. Mujahideen is plural for Mujahid. Of course, Mujahid maybe his nickname but ‘Mujahid Faizan’ appears a very unusual nickname indeed.
We reiterate that we cannot confirm whether ‘Mujahid Faizan’ is a name Syed Faizan Zaidi has chosen for himself based on his ideology or whether it was a name given to him. Regardless, ‘Mujahid’ in his name is a very relevant fact considering the current circumstances.
The Spider’s Web
Thus, we see a network of dubious NGOs uniting to get the NHRC involved in the Citizenship Amendment Act. INSAF is an organization that receives funds from Christian Missionary Organizations. United Against Hate is linked to numerous Islamic fundamentalist organizations and its Facebook page is headed by a Jamia student or alumni who calls himself Mujahid Faizan on Facebook. Furthermore, the initiative is supported by the PUCL, an organization that is heavily linked to ‘Urban Naxals’ and Maoists and is part of the CDRO that is linked to separatists all over India.
Furthermore, Colin Gonsalves, the founder of HRLN, appeared in the Supreme Court demanding a judicial inquiry into the Police action at Jamia. The HRLN receives a significant amount of funding from George Soros’ Open Society Institute as well. The combination of PUCL and HRLN was also involved in the ‘Civil Society’ attack on Akshaya Patra. In this instance, we see the same combination of organizations collaborating with Islamic fundamentalist groups to undermine Indian national interests.
