Media professionals issue statement of solidarity amid anti-CAA protests, ask govt to 'refrain from attacking students'; full text

As simultaneous protests raged in multiple cities on Thursday with thousands-strong crowds of students, activists and others defying prohibitory orders to voice their dissent against the newly amended citizenship law, 164 media professionals and communicators issued a statement in firm solidarity with students and protesters across the country. The media professionals and communicators, in their joint statement, called the CAA and NRC “an attack on the very soul of India and the legacy of the freedom movement”. They added that students and others have a right to resist and “rise in defence of constitutional principles”. The statement goes on to “explicitly condemn the violence unleashed on protesters” as well as “the hate and abuse unleashed by troll armies”. The joint statement called upon the government to “immediately refrain from attacking students and other protesters peacefully resisting the CAA and NRC” and to review its decision and work for a strong, pluralistic and secular India. Here is this full text of the statement: STATEMENT OF SOLIDARITY AND PROTEST We, the undersigned group of media professionals and communicators, jointly issue this statement in firm solidarity with students and protestors across the country — especially of Jamia Milia Islamia and Aligarh Muslim University — who were subjected to police excesses and brutality when they rose to protest the Citizenship Amendment Act (2019) and the imminent nation-wide National Register of Citizens, and register our protest at the CAA-NRC move of the Government of India. We believe that the CAA-NRC violate the fundamental principles of our Constitution, indeed the very foundation of India which chose to be a secular state in 1947, and overturn the basis of citizenship in the country. Religion and ethnicity were consciously discarded as determinants of citizenship or rights of Indians while adopting the Constitution; it expressly disallows discrimination on these — and other — grounds. When the CAA-NRC is in full force, Muslims, several tribal communities and Indians without government-determined documents may not qualify as citizens. Indians would become non-Indians, made refugees in their own nation and forced into an uncertain future. The CAA-NRC is an attack on the very soul of India, on the legacy of the freedom movement which was multi-religious and multi-cultural (today is the 92nd commemoration of the hanging of Ram Prasad Bismil, Ashfaqulla Khan and Roshan Singh for their anti-British activities), and on the inclusive and pluralistic ethos of post-independence years. The NRC exercise in Assam has revealed the terrible human cost, besides logistical nightmares and expenses, of dividing people by religion or ethnicity and linking citizenship to documents. Students and others have a right to resist CAA-NRC and rise in defence of Constitutional principles. Those who protested and resisted did so — and continue to do so — on the basis of rights and responsibilities given to us in the Constitution. The right to dissent is an inalienable aspect of our rights as citizens. This is best encouraged among the young in our campuses. Instead, the police in Delhi and Aligarh brutally beat students, fired tear-gas shells, lathi-charged them and shot at them; the police in other places have clamped down on citizens’ right to assemble and protest by invoking Section 144 of the CrPC. We explicitly condemn the violence unleashed on protestors during the course of these protests as well as the hate-abuse unleashed online by troll armies on social media platforms. We unequivocally condemn the few instances of violence that occurred during the protests which, prima facie, were not traced by the Delhi Police to the protesting students. We call upon the Government to immediately refrain from attacking students and other protestors peacefully resisting the CAA-NRC across the country. We call upon the Government to desist from invoking Section 144 and allow Indians to exercise their constitutional right of assembly, freedom of expression and dissent. We call upon the Government to review its decision on CAA-NRC, focus on providing education-jobs-healthcare for all, and work for a strong, pluralistic, secular India. Signed on December 19, 2019: 1) Aafreen Kidwai 2) Aakash Karkare 3) Aarti Dabas 4) Abhra Das 5) Aditi Mittal 6) Aditi Seshadri 7) Ain Haider 8) Ajay Norohna 9) Akanksha Bajpai 10) Akansha Negi 11) Alka Khandelwal 12) Aliya Khan 13) Amrita Rajput 14) Aneesha Henry 15) Aniketh Mendonca 16) Anila Nair 17) Anita Vasudeva 18) Anjali Awasthi 19) Anjali Singh 20) Ankita Maneck 21) Ankita Agarwal 22) Ankita Sorot 23) Antara Kashyap 24) Anubhuti Matta 25) Anuradha Nagar 26) Anushka Rovshen 27) Aparna Shukla 28) Apoorva Rao 29) Aquila Khan 30) Arshi Khan 31) Atul Kasare 32) Avehi Menon 33) Ayu Bhagat 34) Aziza Syed 35) Bhoomi Mistry 36) Brenna Ribeiro 37) Chandani Ahlawat Dabas 38) Chatura Rao 39) Dalreen Ramos 40) Darshana Jain 41) Deepika Khatri 42) Deepika Lal 43) Devika Bahl 44) Dhara Kanani 45) Dimple Sharma 46) Divya Rao 47) Faiza Ahmad Khan 48) Farah Gulamwaris Thakur 49) Farida Patharia 50) Farzeen Khan 51) Gauri Vij 52) Hansa Thapliyal 53) Himanshi Dhawan 54) Hitarth Desai 55) Inayat Sood 56) Jayati Vora 57) Jeroo Mulla 58) Jerry Pinto 59) Joeyta Bose 60) Jovita Aranha 61) Kajri Babbar 62) Kanika Rajani 63) Karen D’souza 64) Karuna Sharma 65) Kashish Juneja 66) Ketaki 67) Kirti Vij Makhijani 68) Krithi Sundar 69) Kruti Kothari 70) Kunjarani D’souza 71) Layal Ayoub 72) Lubaina Bandukwala 73) Madhuri Mohindar 74) Maheep Dhillon 75) Maleeva Rebello 76) Mamta Kalambe 77) Mayanka Goel 78) Meena Thaker Pillai 79) Megha Bhattacharya 80) Megha Subramanian 81) Mimansha 82) Minnie Vaid 83) Monica James 84) Monica Wahi 85) Mousufa Mukadam 86) Mugdha Singh 87) Mukta Dhond 88) Nancy Adjania 89) Nandini Ramnath 90) Nandini Shrikent 91) Natasha Trivedi 92) Navya Sahai Bhatnagar 93) Nayana Agrawal 94) Nilesh Correia 95) Niloufer Sagar 96) Nilofer 97) Nirmita Gupta 98) Nirmiti Kamat 99) Parth Vyas 100) Parul Rana 101) Pooja Raheja 102) Prarthana Uppal 103) Prateek Gautam 104) Prathamesh Kharatmal 105) Pria Somiah 106) Priyanka Arora 107) Purvi Malhotra 108) Radhika Makker 109) Ragini Khushwaha 110) Rajat Zamde 111) Rashmi Mehta 112) Reebu Tandon 113) Reena Rai 114) Reshmi Chakraborty 115) Riddhi Savla 116) Rucha Pathak 117) Rujuta Sabnis 118) Rupali Arte 119) Sakshi Sharma 120) Saloni Jain 121) Sameera Khan 122) Sanjukta Sharma 123) Sanyuktha Chawla Shaikh 124) Sapana Jaiswal 125) Sara Shaikh 126) Sarojini Pradhan 127) Savitri Medhatul 128) Shalini Singh 129) Sharanya Misra Sharma 130) Sheetal Jhaveri Mehta 131) Sheetal Mehta Karia 132) Shradha Sukumaran 133) Shraddha Agarwal 134) Shraddha Sharma 135) Shreya Khare 136) Shuchi Talati 137) Shyma Rajagopal 138) Siddhi Patel 139) Simran Dang 140) Smitha Menon 141) Smriti Jain 142) Smruti Koppikar 143) Sowjanya Kashyap 144) Srushti Iyer 145) Sruti Visweswaran 146) Stefanie Samuel 147) Sukanya Deb 148) Sukhada Tatke 149) Surekha S 150) Sunayana Sadarangani 151) Suryasarathi Bhattacharya 152) Swati Ali 153) Tejal Pandey 154) Tihany Sengupta 155) Trupti Kanade 156) Vedika Singhania 157) Vishnu Bagdawala 158) Vrushali Telang 159) Yakuta Poonawalla 160) Yashaswini Raghunandan 161) Zahra Gabuji 162) Zara Mann 163) Zulfia Waris The full text has been reproduced and has not been edited by Firstpost for style and clarity