SHILLONG, DEC 8: The Thma-U-Rangli-Juki (TUR) will hold a ‘street corner meeting’ to protest against the draconian Meghalaya Preventive Detention Act (MPDA) and Meghalaya Maintenance of Public Order Act (MMPO) laws and also observe the International Human Rights Day at Khyndai Lad on December 10.
TUR) leader Angela Rngad said on Sunday the street corner meeting will kick off the state wide campaign against attacks on people’s right to protest and expose the blatant misuse of these black laws by what the TUR says “a corrupt and authoritarian state government to silence any form of dissent” and the government’s constant illegal infringement on the civil and political liberties of the people of the state.
Rngad felt that the existence of laws like the MPDA and MMPO has slowly and silently ‘eroded’ the legal procedures and constrained ‘democratic spaces’ by curbing the individual and collective expression of dissent..
Rngad said, “These draconian black laws are designed not to provide peace and security to the people but to create a permanent condition of fear, insecurity and public disorder.”
According to Rngad the logical outcome of such arbitrary laws is to push through anti-people development policies by the government and to silence people at large when those policies threaten their land, resources, and livelihood, allowing the elites to protect their privileges and push forward their plans which will usher in grave inequalities.
Stating that rather than protecting people’s Human Rights and expanding their freedoms, Rngad alleged, “The Meghalaya government actually presides over a regime of systemic and systematic everyday violations of people’s rights.”
Recently, a total of seventy-one pro Inner-Line Permit (ILP) activists were arrested and booked under MMPO and some under the MPDA for their alleged involvement in the several cases related to arsons during the three months agitations demanding for implementation of the ILP to check influx in the state.
Rngad said laws like MPDA and MMPO are laws that have institutionalized human rights ‘violations’. She was of the opinion that if International Human Rights Day has to have any meaning in Meghalaya people have to start challenging these legal cultures of ‘rights violation’.- By Our Reporter
The TUR under its leader Rngad will be observing the Human Right’s Day by protesting against the govt. draconian laws is apreciable. The TUR is suggested to watch and probe if the govt. is implementing the various schemes meant for the common people.