UN rights experts urge India to eliminate barriers to civilian access to foreign funding News
UN rights experts urge India to eliminate barriers to civilian access to foreign funding

A group of independent UN human rights experts urged [press release] India on Thursday to repeal a law increasingly being used to obstruct civilian access to foreign funding. This news comes in the wake of a six-month suspension on the registration of the non-governmental organization (NGO) Lawyers Collective [advocacy website], under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) [the Act, PDF]. The suspension was ordered based on allegations that its founders, human rights lawyers Indira Jaising and Anand Grover, used foreign funding for impermissible purposes in violation of FCRA provisions. Jaising was a former member of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), and Grover was the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health from 2008 to 2014. According to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) [official website], despite detailed evidence provided by the NGOs to prove that all foreign contributions were spent and accounted for in compliance with the FCRA, the suspension was still imposed. The Special Rapporteurs stated:

We are alarmed by reports that the suspension was politically motivated and was aimed at intimidating, delegitimising and silencing Lawyers Collective for their litigation and criticism of the Government’s policies. … We are also concerned about procedural irregularities surrounding the order, including repeatedly leaked information to the press of suspension notices against the Lawyers Collective months before those were formally served to the NGO.

Urging the government to reverse its decision and recognize the “invaluable contribution” of Jaising and Grover as human rights defenders in upholding constitutional values in India, the experts stated that India must “ensure a safe and enabling environment for human rights defenders and civil society, which play a critical role in holding the Government to account and buttressing the Indian democracy.”

India has previously faced international criticism. In February the Supreme Court of India [official website] agreed to review [JURIST report] its 2013 decision reinstating [JURIST report] an 1861 law prohibiting sex between consenting adults of the same sex. A month earlier, Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] issued a letter [text, PDF] to the Indian Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment [official website], urging [JURIST report] it to strengthen provisions of the 2015 Rights of Transgender Persons Bill. Last August India, after widespread international criticism, ordered Internet service providers [JURIST report] to allow access to the 857 previously banned pornography and humor websites provided they did not include child pornography. Earlier last year India’s Supreme Court struck down [judgment, PDF] a law that gave authorities the power to jail people for offensive online posts. That ruling was welcomed and commended [JURIST report] by Prime Minister Narendra Modi [official website].

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