UK urged to act after UN panel rules detention of Briton in India ‘arbitrary’
Britain is under pressure to insist on the release of India Jagtar Singh Johal, a British citizen, after the UN working group decided that he had been arbitrarily detained by India and his detention had no legal basis.Boris Johnson apparently raised this case when he met with the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, last month and gave a written record of consular cases, but the Minister of Foreign Office had not confirmed whether they considered their arrest.Johal was arrested after his marriage in Punjab in November 2017, accused of helping to fund the plot of the murder of the Sikh-On-Hindu-one that he and his family denied very much.
In what is described as an important moment in this case, the UN panel based on arbitrary detention concluded that “Sustainable Pre-Siap Detention from Mr. Johal has no legal basis, and arbitrarily” because he was kidnapped by a civilian dressed officer without a warrant Arrests, held without communication and rejected consular assistance or access to lawyers. They observed that “There is no legal evidence of Johal, even though the intelligence institution has more than three years to investigate” and conclude that “the right medicine is to immediately release Johal”. Johal claimed he was tortured and forced to sign a statement of empty recognition, and then made additional accusations against him which has now reached a total of nine cases. He was transferred to Nabha’s maximum security prison, where he remained until May 25, 2019, before being transferred to prison in Delhi. The UN report said that despite being in prison for more than four years he had not been charged and there was no evidence that was acceptable to be produced.
Reports by the United Nations Working Group on arbitrary detention claimed “Johal is targeted because of its activities as practitioners and supporters of SIKH and because their activists write public posts that call on accountability for alleged actions taken against SIKH by the authorities”.He added that he “lost his freedom with discriminatory reasons, because of his status as a defender of human rights and based on his political activism, faith and religious opinion”.The Indian government denied torture, and said that it was still compiling evidence in these cases. Jagtar’s brother, Gurprreet Singh Johal, who had fought for his release, was elected as a member of the Labor Council in the Local Scottish election in Dunbarton last week.
He said: “We already knew from the beginning that there was no good reason for Jagtar prison and in four years Indian authority had not produced evidence of him. The British government had not listened to us, but maybe it would listen to the United Nations and call for its release. There was so much setback but on It was like this, we dreamed of when my brother stepped out of the plane in Scotland to reunite with his family. “
Executive Director of Human Rights Group Punishment, Maya Foa, said: “This is an important moment. There is no longer a reason for a sustainable government failure to ask for liberation and return to Jagtar. When a British citizen was tortured and detained in the detention of pre-trust for four years, facing the possibility of death sentence, the prime minister’s responsibility was clear. What is Boris Johnson awaited? Foreign offices said that they had raised this case more than 70 times at various levels and that the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Liz Truss, had offered to meet families to discuss this case.
