Support has been pouring in for arrested 22-year-old climate change activist Disha A. Ravi in the city. Hundreds of students, farmers, writers and activists staged a protest at Mysore Bank Circle on Monday demanding that she be released. Several students from Disha’s alma mater Mount Carmel College and environmental activists who have worked with her also participated in it.
Farmers’ leader Badagalpura Nagendra, of Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha, strongly condemned the arrest of Disha and saw it as a continuation of the crackdown on protesting farmers. Leo Saldanha, of Environment Support Group, said it was shocking that the Union government was so insecure and paranoid. “Our country is stable and strong. It will definitely not collapse over a toolkit,” he said.
Most protesters saw the arrest as only the latest in a series of attacks on dissenters in the country and particularly in the State.
Rhea Mukherjee, a writer said the city had seen a series of unfortunate arrests, booking people for sedition, ever since the anti-CAA protests in the city in 2019. “A false narrative is being created that all dissenters are a threat to the nation. But there is no option but to stand up to this,” she said. Two students Amulya Leona Noronha and Ardra Narayanan were booked for sedition and arrested during anti-CAA protests in the city, over slogans they raised.
The Opposition Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party also supported Disha, and their representatives, including Jayanagar Congress MLA Soumya Reddy, were part of the protest. Leader of Opposition Siddaramaiah came out in support on social media. “Narendra Modi, who says girls must be educated, will jail them when they question him,” he said on Twitter. Other Congress leaders also rallied in support of Disha on Twitter.
#fingeronyourlips
Disha Ravi has been trending on social media, with her friends launching a unique digital campaign #fingeronyourlips, to show how the incumbent regime was gagging people. Hundreds of users posted pictures with fingers on their lips, condemning the arrest of Disha and the persecution of two other activists from Maharashtra – Nikita Jacob and Shantanu. Multiple change.org petitions have condemned the arrest, pointed out procedural lapses in her arrest and have demanded her immediate release.
