London
UK-based Clooney Foundation for Justice – co-founded by renowned lawyer, Amal Clooney and actor, George Clooney – has decided to monitor the ongoing trial of award-winning Kashmiri journalist, Aasif Sultan, who has been in jail for over two and a half years and faces the death penalty if convicted.
The Clooney Foundation for Justice which runs the “TrialWatch” to monitor criminal proceedings around the world, “grades their fairness, and advocates for individuals who are unfairly detained”.
Aasif Sultan is a journalist who was working for the Kashmir Narrator magazine in Srinagar. Since August 2018, he has been in jail on false charges.
A spokesperson of the Clooney Foundation, in a statement, noted that the press and human rights organizations believe the charges actually stem from Sultan’s coverage of a Kashmiri youth killed by Indian forces, whose killing set off protest demonstrations in IIOJK in July 2016.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), after CPJ called for Sultan’s release in The Washington Post, the Indian police responded on Twitter that Sultan was not being held for his work but for hatching a criminal conspiracy.
Sultan’s trial is restarting after multiple delays, including absences by key prosecution witnesses, and again after the 2019 revocation of Kashmir’s special status.
In recent years, Aasif Sultan is one among a number of journalists in Kashmir who have been detained and investigated or prosecuted for their journalism.
Today, Sultan has been jailed for over two and a half years in Srinagar’s Central Jail, where COVID-19 cases have been mounting since the summer of 2020.
“International standards favor an accused’s liberty pending trial and proscribe mandatory pretrial detention based on the charged offense,” said the Foundation, while announcing watching his trial.
“In particular, these standards require individualized consideration of whether a restriction on liberty is necessary, and, if so, mandate that the least restrictive option be imposed.”
The Clooney Foundation for Justice also called upon the authorities to ensure that Sultan’s bail hearing is conducted in accordance with international human rights law and any proceedings against him respect his human rights, including his right to a fair trial and to freedom of expression.—KMS
