The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Posters are ‘inciting people’, say police

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Thursday, Sep 25, 2008
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Posters are ‘inciting people’, say police

Special Correspondent

KFD activists arrested, released after protests

Bangalore: The headline of a poster released by the Karnataka Forum for Dignity (KFD) reads: “Now they came for Christians.” The short text that follows reads: “We forgot Babri Masjid. We forgot Gujarat genocide. And now … Orissa, Karnataka. Silence is a crime.” These lines, inspired by the oft-quoted German poem of Pastor Martin Niemöller “First they came…”, about the inactivity of German intellectuals following the Nazi rise to power, has attracted Section 153 of the Indian Penal Code. According to K.M. Sharif of KFD, police arrested the group’s activists in Ramanagaram, Mysore and Bangalore, for putting up the posters, which was part of their campaign against the attacks on Christian institutions in Karnataka. They were released following protests. “The police came to our office in Bangalore on September 20 and took away about 10 to 15 of the posters,” said Mr. Sharif. He said the posters were not meant to provoke anyone. KFD has decided to complain to the Karnataka State Human Rights Commission on the “infringement” of their basic right to express opinion. Additional Commissioner of Police (Law and Order) M.R. Pujar insisted that the poster “could incite people”. He said the case was booked exclusively in connection with the poster.

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