Today, 14 April 2023 marks four years, seven months and eighteen days since Gautam Navlakha’s arrest on 28 August 2018. A well-known human rights activist, respected journalist and writer of long standing, Gautam has now been incarcerated for three years since 14 April 2020 when he surrendered at the NIA office in Delhi.
Gautam went to jail when the pandemic had just begun, he was kept in the high security anda cell from October 2021, his health has suffered, and age is against him. The trial is yet to begin, he is not implicated in any other cases, and yet he continues to be in jail. Gautam is someone who has always spoken out for the rights of the marginalised and striven to protect these. A firm believer that justice delayed is justice denied, and a critic of the UAPA where the process is the punishment, Gautam today exemplifies just these very rights’ violations that he has striven against all his life.
Today we his fellow activists in PUDR reiterate that justice delayed is indeed justice denied and demand the immediate release of Gautam Navlakha.
Joseph Mathai and Paramjeet Singh
(Secretaries)
pudr@pudr.org
