IN DEFENCE OF ARUNDHATI ROY: DEMAND TO UPHOLD FREE SPEECH AND EXPRESSION
Statement by Academics and Activists from India and Abroad
We condemn the demand of the BJP to take the strongest possible action against Arundhati Roy for her seditious comments at the seminar, Azadi: The only way held in New Delhi, October 21, 2010.
There is recorded evidence to prove that the views expressed by her are not new and have also been made by innumerable others before and after her. If Arundhati Roy or Syed Ali Shah Geelani (or any other speaker from that seminar) is to be arrested for what they have said, then by the same logic a number of us would have to be imprisoned not to mention the entire population of Kashmir. The concept of `sedition’ is archaic and has no place in a modern democratic imagination.