{"id":38176,"date":"2023-12-21T17:15:09","date_gmt":"2023-12-21T17:15:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/india-overhauls-criminal-code-alarming-rights-campaigners\/"},"modified":"2023-12-21T17:15:09","modified_gmt":"2023-12-21T17:15:09","slug":"india-overhauls-criminal-code-alarming-rights-campaigners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/india-overhauls-criminal-code-alarming-rights-campaigners\/","title":{"rendered":"India overhauls criminal code, alarming rights campaigners"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div dir=\"auto\">\n<p>India\u2019s parliament on Thursday rushed through the country\u2019s biggest criminal justice overhaul since the British colonial era, alarming rights campaigners who say the new laws give authorities too much power.<\/p>\n<p>Sweeping changes to the colonial-era Penal Code and two other laws remove archaic references to the British monarchy, redefine the scope of \u201cterrorism\u201d offences, and introduce new punishments for mob lynchings and crimes against women.<\/p>\n<p>Home Minister Amit Shah said when unveiling the three <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1769598\">proposed<\/a> laws in August that the old statutes had been designed to \u201cstrengthen colonial rule\u201d and had outlived their purpose.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media  sm:w-1\/2  w-full  media--left  media--embed  media--uneven\">\n<p>    <iframe class=\"nk-iframe\" onload=\"setInterval(()=&gt;{try{this.style.height=this.contentWindow.document.body.scrollHeight+'px';}catch{}}, 100)\" width=\"100%\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" style=\"height:400px;position:relative\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/card\/1729126\" sandbox=\"allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-popups allow-modals allow-forms\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>\u201cThe motive of the three bills is not to give punishment but to give justice,\u201d he told lawmakers on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>The new laws quickly passed through both houses of parliament over two days with minimal debate, after nearly 150 opposition lawmakers were suspended over the past week for protesting an unrelated issue.<\/p>\n<p>New provisions in the laws would impose the death penalty on perpetrators of mob lynchings and the rape of a minor, as well as a 20-year minimum sentence in cases of gang rape.<\/p>\n<p>They introduce community service provisions for petty crimes to ease the chronic backlog in Indian courts, which have millions of pending cases.<\/p>\n<p>The laws also heighten police powers over the detention of suspects and expand terrorism offences to include acts that could threaten India\u2019s sovereignty or \u201ceconomic security\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Amnesty International said the new criminal justice framework would intensify a \u201ctargeted crackdown on freedom of expression in the country\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The laws \u201cdangerously broaden the definition of \u2018terrorism\u2019, reintroduce sedition, retain the death penalty, and extend police custody\u201d, the rights watchdog said.<\/p>\n<p>India\u2019s Penal Code and other statutes governing the police and courts were introduced in the 19th century, while the country was governed by the British crown.<\/p>\n<p>The legal overhaul is the latest effort by Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s Hindu-nationalist government in its campaign to remove lingering symbols of colonial rule from India\u2019s history books, urban landscape and political institutions.<\/p>\n<p>Modi\u2019s government has passed a number of laws through parliament this week while more than half of the legislature\u2019s opposition lawmakers were <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1799081\/indian-opposition-mps-suspended-for-demanding-security-breach-statement\">barred from attending<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>They had been protesting a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1797668\">security breach<\/a> last week that saw a member of the public enter the floor of the lower house and set off a smoke canister.<\/p>\n<p>Parliament also passed a telecoms bill that allows the government to temporarily take control of and suspend telecom services in the interest of national security.<\/p>\n<p>The new telecoms law\u2019s expanded powers have been criticised by campaigners who say India already regularly uses internet shutdowns to manage unrest.<\/p>\n<p>Lawyer and digital rights advocate Apar Gupta told <em>AFP<\/em> that the law would uphold the government\u2019s power to shut down the internet \u201cwithout any statutory safeguards\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>India\u2019s parliament on Thursday rushed through the country\u2019s biggest criminal justice overhaul since the British colonial era, alarming rights campaigners who say the new laws give authorities too much power. Sweeping changes to the colonial-era Penal Code and two other laws remove archaic references to the British monarchy, redefine the scope of \u201cterrorism\u201d offences, and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38177,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.dawn.com\/large\/2023\/12\/21203755afe0f3b.jpg?r=203758","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[192],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-islamabad-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}