Protests in UK in support of Indian death row convict in UAE

London, Nov 12: A protest demonstration was held in front of the UAE embassy here in support of an Indian man allegedly wrongly imprisoned and sentenced to death for rape in Abu Dhabi.

The demonstrators also presented a petition in support of E K Gangadharan yesterday addressed to UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, and the UAE Ambassadors to India and the UK.

The campaign to save Gangadharan is gathering momentum, particularly across India.

The petition said Gangadharan had worked in the UAE "loyally and blamelessly" for 32 years in Al Rabeeh School in Abu Dhabi.

He has been sentenced to death on charge of rape.

It states that Gangadharan was beaten and degraded in prison, including being denied food and water for three days.

Gangadharan pleaded innocent at his trial in the First Court and will do so at his appeal hearing.

It is alleged that he was denied a fair trial as his court-appointed interpreter spoke Hindi and not his native language of Malayalam.

The petition claims DNA evidence showing that Gangadharan did not commit the crime, was not given in court.

Human Rights Watch representative Nick McGeehan said, "The silence surrounding this case is concerning. It is imperative that the UAE authorities conduct an immediate investigation into allegations that Gangadharan endured torture and didn't receive proper legal assistance either before or during his trial. And the Indian authorities should be lobbying hard for this investigation."

Director of the Emirates Centre for Human Rights, Rori Donaghy said, "This case bears the hallmark of one where the defendant has been convicted without being given a fair hearing. It is of grave concern that a man is facing the death penalty when there are allegations of torture that have not been investigated."

He said, over the past year there have been numerous allegations that prisoners in the UAE have been tortured in order to extract confessions and that 75 per cent of prisoners at Dubai Central Prison claim to have been physically abused.

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Trump’s associates told to avoid racist language making them ‘look like Nazis’

News Network

November 18,2024

Advisors to US President-elect Donald Trump have instructed his allies and associates to refrain from using the inflammatory language they previously employed when discussing issues related to migrants and the deportation of asylum seekers, in a bid to avoid “looking like Nazis.”

US media reports said that Trump’s associates had been asked to stop using the word “camps” to describe potential facilities that would be used to accommodate migrants rounded up in deportation operations across the country.

The reports said the US president-elect’s allies had been ordered to stave off such charged terms as they would bring to mind “Nazis,” and be used against Trump.

“I have received some guidance to avoid terms, like ‘camps,’ that can be twisted and used against the president, yes,” one Trump ally told American monthly magazine Rolling Stone.

“Apparently, some people think it makes us look like Nazis.”

The presidential advisers also cautioned surrogates and allies to keep racist terms, which have dogged Trump’s campaign, out of their remarks.

They said with Trump’s heated rhetoric that used to compare undocumented immigrants to “animals” and his slight that they are “poisoning the blood of our country,” detractors did not need to reach too far to find parallels to Nazi Germany.

Stephen Miller, who Trump tapped to be his deputy chief of staff of policy, specifically used the word “camps” to describe holding facilities that he hoped the military could put together for immigrants.

Tom Homan, who served as the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and is chosen by Trump to be in charge of the US borders, was no stranger to such language.

“It’s not gonna be a mass sweep of neighborhoods,” he said in an interview earlier this week. “It’s not gonna be building concentration camps. I’ve read it all. It’s ridiculous.”

Becoming a little more forthright about the new government’s aggressive deportation plans, Homan likened the early days of the Trump administration to the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003.

“I got three words for them – shock and awe,” he said. “You’re going to see us take this country back.”

Trump made immigration a central element of his 2024 presidential campaign but unlike his first run, which was mainly focused on building a border wall, he has shifted his attention to interior enforcement and the removal of undocumented immigrants already in the United States.

People close to the US president and his aides are laying the groundwork for expanding detention facilities to fulfill his mass deportation campaign promise.

The businessman-turned-politician deported more than 1.5 million people during his first term.

The figure do not include the millions of people turned away at the border under a Covid-era policy enacted by Trump and used during most of Biden’s term.

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