Ex-Karnataka Lokayukta Backs Sedition Charge Against Amnesty

Hyderabad: Former Supreme Court Judge and Karnataka's ex-Lokayukta N Santosh Hegde today backed charges of sedition against human rights watchdog Amnesty International. At an event organised by Amnesty International on Saturday, anti-India slogans were allegedly raised during a discussion on Kashmir, prompting the authorities to charge the human rights watchdog with sedition.

Questioning the credibility of the human rights watchdog, Mr Hegde said that it could not "run-away" from its responsibility by "claiming that none of its employees were involved in sloganeering."

"What the responsibility of Amnesty International? They should have known that when you bring these people and allow whatever they want to speak and they say I am not responsible. No, you have made a platform available to them, you are an abettor. You cannot run away from that," Mr Hegde said.

Talking about the seditious nature of comments made at Amnesty's Saturday event, Mr Hegde said that the police were right in charging Amnesty and probing the matter.

"Taking into consideration what was spoken in the Bengaluru incident, I would say it certainly amounts to sedition."

"Let us take the institution's credibility. What did Amnesty International do when soldiers were killed? What did Amnesty International do when other terrorist activities were taking place in this country? Did they ever call a meeting like this? You try to get some popularity, and when it backfires you run away," Mr Hegde said.

Amnesty, on its part, has rejected as "without substance" the allegations made by the BJP's student body, which had also filed a police complaint in connection with the event. Amnesty also submitted a video of the proceedings, and claimed that none of its employees shouted any anti-India slogans at any point.