FEBRUARY 20

MILAN PIAZZA DUOMO AT 4.00 p.m.

ROME VIA VENTI SETTEMBRE AT 4.00 p.m. delivery of the appeal to the Indian Embassy

STOP THE REPRESSIVE VIOLENCE AGAINST PROTESTERS

USB LAUNCHES A DAY OF SOLIDARITY WITH INDIAN FARMERS AND WORKERS

Send mail to INDIAN AMBASSADY IN ITALY asking:

"STOP VIOLENCE ON PROTESTERS - WITHDRAWAL OF THE LAW PACKAGE"

In India, the historic struggle of farmers and agricultural workers has been going on for months, led by a coalition of 32 organizations, collectively united in the All India Kisan Coordination Committee.

The package of laws against which the farmers are fighting will distort the agricultural policies won over the years after Independence. The three laws of which the package is composed were approved in a hurry in Parliament in September without any prior discussion, and have been suspended by the Supreme Court for 18 months, but the talks held between the parties have not yet led to any progress: the movement calls for their complete withdrawal, while the government intends only to amend the most unpopular parts.

In the meantime the Government fiercely represses the peasants and those who support them.

An enormous number of police forces are deployed against the workers in struggle, only on the day of February 6, when the major national highways were blocked, 50 thousand units between Delhi Police, paramilitary and Reserve Forces, despite the demonstration was peaceful there were many violent attacks and hundreds of arrests.

The State Police (MHA) applies the blackout of the computer network in the surroundings of the capital, where the farmers have been camped for two months. At the same time the big social networks censor the pages of the movement.

The first nationwide initiative of struggle was on January 26th, when about 250 thousand farmers peacefully "invaded" the capital New Delhi.

On that historic day in which India celebrates the proclamation of the Republican Constitution after the long British rule, the farmers camped since November 26 - coming mainly from Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh - on the outskirts of the capital have entered the city center along the arteries that connect the surroundings of Singhu, Ghazipur and Tikri. Massive solidarity actions all over India.

What was supposed to be a day of peaceful struggle on January 26th was in part transformed, due to police provocations, into a day of clashes, in which the police violently repressed the demonstrators causing the injury of some and the death of Navreet Singh, a 30 year old farmer, whose death is being investigated more by independent media correspondents than by the police authorities.


The head of the government, Narendra Modi, and the majority led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), had taken as a pretext the alleged "violent turn taken by the protest", and in particular the "invasion" of the Red Fort, to try to discredit the struggle of the peasants in the eyes of public opinion through the mass media, all in the hands of the Indian elite.

The war of information is a fundamental aspect of this conflict, considering that if on one hand 80% of the media is owned by two corporate groups in the hands of billionaire families, on the other hand, independent media outlets are subjected to increasingly fierce repression.

Peasant camps were denied the most basic services, from water to electricity, to internet connection, worsening an already serious situation, considering that more than 150 farmers died of hypothermia in the months in which these villages were set up around the capital.

For all these reasons:

Send mail to : amb.rome@mea.gov.in INDIAN AMBASSADY IN ITALY asking:

STOP VIOLENCE ON MANIFESTANTS - WITHDRAWAL OF THE LAW PACKAGE".

Take to the street on saturday 20

FEBRUARY 20 MILAN PIAZZA DUOMO AT 4.00 p.m.

ROME VIA VENTI SETTEMBRE AT 4.00 p.m. delivery of the appeal to the Indian Embassy