Friday 19 December 2008

The new POTA

As happened in the USA after the 9/11, which many believe was a State conspiracy, the 26/11 which was the result of lapses by the Coast Guard and the Navy, has reduced the middle classes of the country to panic. The situation is cleverly being used by the ruling classes to institutionalize an Orwellian 1984. The Opposition and the Treasury benches have joined to pass laws that would make the State immune to any human rights violation. The new law will increase the period of detention of suspects by the police and the judiciary from 90 to 180 days and seeks to choke the financial pipelines of groups suspected of abetting terrorism. But the law also makes the signed confession of suspects in police custody inadmissible in court, a crucial deterrent against coercive methods often used during interrogation. It also gives the courts the power to decide on bail in some cases. All this in a country where custodial deaths and fake encounters; and thousands languishing in jails without trial is the rule even under existing laws and regulations, which are reportedly ineffectual that we need a new POTA!

The two most important democracies on the globe thus become dictatorships of the ruling classes. I weep for the thousands of teens and young men of this country that would now suffer renewed State brutality. The middle classes that applaud the new laws might feel otherwise when they would find their own hauled off by our corrupt State apparatus on whimsical grounds or no grounds at all.

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