The Bhumi Adhikar Andolan (BAA), a network of land rights movements across India, will be holding protests all over India against the eviction of forest dwellers on July 22, 2019, ahead of a crucial Supreme Court hearing two days later. The call for action is against the Supreme Court ruling of February 13, 2019 on eviction of millions of Adivasis and other traditional forest-dwelling communities, which was stayed for four months.
BAA said, a protest will also be organized in Delhi a protest demonstration will be held at Jantar Mantar, 12:00 noon onwards, adding, the decision for the action was taken as a two-day National Consultation of Land and Forest Rights Movements held in Delhi early this month, where it was decided to hold programmes and protest actions condemning government actions against forest dwellers and amendments to the Forest Act.
BAA further said, letters have already gone to chief ministers of different states seeking their intervention in favour of the Forest Rights Act and Adivasis in the Supreme Court.
It added, “While on the February 28, the Supreme Court stayed its order putting orders for eviction on hold, the forest department is yet pushing people out of their lands destroying their farm fields”, as seen in Sonbhadra, UP, where several tribals were killed in police firing.
“Land conflicts will be on the rise if the rights over land and resources are not settled”, BAA statement said in its statement endorsed by Hannan Mollah, Medha Patkar, Jitendra Chaudhary, Roma, Ashok Choudhary, Ulka Mahajan, Atul Anjan, Prafulla Samantara, Dr Sunilam, Teesta Setalvad, Madhuresh Kumar, Ashok Shrimali, among others.
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