{"id":207531,"date":"2022-08-23T21:01:28","date_gmt":"2022-08-23T16:01:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pakistantoday.com.pk\/?p=207531"},"modified":"2022-08-23T21:01:28","modified_gmt":"2022-08-23T16:01:28","slug":"uk-spies-accused-over-arrest-of-sikh-blogger-in-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pakistantoday.com.pk\/2022\/08\/23\/uk-spies-accused-over-arrest-of-sikh-blogger-in-india\/","title":{"rendered":"UK spies accused over arrest of Sikh blogger in India"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Human rights groups on Tuesday said UK intelligence agencies may have shared information with India that led to the arrest and torture of a Sikh blogger from Scotland.<\/p>\n<p>Jagtar Singh Johal, 35, has been held in detention in India for more than four years.<br \/>\nHe is accused of being part of a terror plot against right-wing Hindu leaders and has been charged with conspiracy to murder.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Our investigators have uncovered critical information that in 2017, the UK government may have authorised MI5 and MI6 to share information about UK citizen Jagtar Singh Johal,&#8221; two organisations, Reprieve and Redress, said in a joint statement.<\/p>\n<p>They claimed this tip-off &#8220;led to his unlawful arrest and torture in India&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Current prime minister Boris Johnson was foreign minister at the time.<\/p>\n<p>Britain is bound by international treaties such as the European Convention on Human Rights not to hand over citizens where they are at risk of torture.<\/p>\n<p>But family members of Johal and other British citizens detained abroad or recently released have called for a law obliging the UK government to actively protect people caught up in such cases.<\/p>\n<p>Johal, from Dumbarton in west Scotland, has filed a legal claim against the UK government and is being represented by British law firm Leigh Day.<\/p>\n<p>He has filed a petition with the High Court in London and is asking for a public apology and<br \/>\nredress from the government.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It would be totally unacceptable for the UK government&#8217;s actions to have placed an individual, let alone a British citizen, at risk of torture or the death penalty,&#8221; said Leigh Day partner Waleed Sheikh.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Electric shocks &#8211;<\/p>\n<p>Reprieve and Redress said Johal was abducted in 2017 with a sack over his head while in India for his wedding.<\/p>\n<p>He was held incommunicado for 10 days and tortured with electric shocks to his ear lobes, nipples and genitals until he signed a &#8220;false confession&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Evidence has now been uncovered that the British intelligence agencies, MI5 and MI6, may have contributed to Jagtar&#8217;s detention and torture by sharing intelligence with the Indian authorities,&#8221; the NGOs said.<\/p>\n<p>They accused the UK of having acted while &#8220;there was a real risk that Jagtar could be tortured, mistreated or face the death penalty&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Rupert Skilbeck, director of Redress, called for a &#8220;full review of the way that the UK government responds when UK citizens are tortured abroad&#8221; and &#8220;the role of the intelligence community in this case&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Leigh Day is arguing that an anonymised case study in a 2018 report by a British interior ministry body, the Investigatory Powers Commission, appears to discuss Johal&#8217;s case.<\/p>\n<p>The commission oversees the use of covert investigatory powers by UK authorities, including the police and intelligence services.<\/p>\n<p>It said domestic spy agency MI5 and MI6 passed information on a British national to foreign authorities resulting in their detention and torture.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; &#8216;Release Johal&#8217; &#8211;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Britain is fortunate that its civil service doggedly documents wrongdoing,&#8221; wrote The Times newspaper.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It was only because of the investigatory powers commissioner&#8217;s annual report that Johal&#8217;s treatment and the hand of the British state in it was revealed.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The UN working group on arbitrary detention reported this year that Johal&#8217;s arrest was &#8220;excessive&#8221; and &#8220;arbitrary&#8221; and on &#8220;discriminatory grounds&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Prime Minister Johnson subsequently accepted this.<\/p>\n<p>The UN working group said the &#8220;appropriate remedy would be to release Mr Johal immediately&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>The &#8220;online activist&#8230; contributed to a magazine and website documenting the persecution of the Sikh religious minority in India,&#8221; the UN report said.<\/p>\n<p>India has aired TV footage of Johal&#8217;s alleged confession but has denied physical and mental torture, it added.<\/p>\n<p>The activist was being held in Tihar prison in New Delhi, the UN body said.<\/p>\n<p>The Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office said in response to the claims that it would be &#8220;inappropriate&#8221; to comment during legal proceedings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Human rights groups on Tuesday said UK intelligence agencies may have shared information with India that led to the arrest and torture of a Sikh blogger from Scotland. Jagtar Singh Johal, 35, has been held in detention in India for more than four years. He is accused of being part of a terror plot against [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":555,"featured_media":153178,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"coauthors":[148],"class_list":{"0":"post-207531","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pakistantoday.com.pk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207531"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pakistantoday.com.pk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pakistantoday.com.pk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pakistantoday.com.pk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/555"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pakistantoday.com.pk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207531"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.pakistantoday.com.pk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207531\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":207532,"href":"https:\/\/www.pakistantoday.com.pk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207531\/revisions\/207532"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pakistantoday.com.pk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pakistantoday.com.pk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pakistantoday.com.pk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pakistantoday.com.pk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207531"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pakistantoday.com.pk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=207531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}