Amnesty International official barred from leaving India

NEW DELHI

Aakar Patel, chair of human rights group Amnesty International India, was barred from boarding a flight to the US on Wednesday.

Patel was stopped at the airport in Bengaluru, capital of the southern Karnataka state, and told his name was on India’s Exit Control List because of a case filed against the rights group by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.

“The government has demonstrated how civil society is under attack in the country … These restraints for travel have time and again not stood the challenge in courts, but still the government persists,” he told local daily The Hindu, adding that he is exploring legal options and plans to challenge the decision.

Indian authorities are yet to comment on the matter.

Amnesty International halted operations in India in September 2020 after its bank accounts were frozen as part of a “continuing crackdown” and “harassment” by the government.

That came a year after India’s Central Bureau of Investigation filed a case against the group and three associated organizations on a complaint by the country’s Home Ministry.

Patel, also a prominent author, was arrested in 2020 on charges of posting “offensive” tweets.

He secured bail in the case and had to surrender his passport, which he recently got back from a court with specific permission to fly to the US.

Patel’s is the second case in just over a week of Indian authorities barring people critical of the government from leaving the country.

Journalist and activist Rana Ayyub, an outspoken critic of Modi and his government, was prevented from boarding a flight to London on March 29, where she was due to speak at an event about targeting of journalists and rights abuses in the world’s largest democracy.

She challenged the move in the Delhi High Court and was later allowed to travel abroad.