It’s Amnesty’s fault: MHA on NGO halting operations in India

NEW DELHI: Amnesty International on Tuesday said it is halting all its activities in India due to freezing of its accounts and claimed that it is being subjected to an “incessant witch-hunt” over unfounded, motivated allegations.

Reacting to it, the Home Ministry said Amnesty International’s statement was unfortunate, exaggerated and far from the truth. It said all the “glossy statements” about humanitarian work and speaking truth to power are nothing but a “ploy to divert attention” from their activities which were in clear contravention of Indian laws.

“Such statements are also an attempt to extraneously influence the course of investigations by multiple agencies into the irregularities and illegalities carried out over the last few years,” the Home Ministry said in a detailed statement.

In order to circumvent the FCRA regulations, Amnesty UK remitted large amounts of money to four entities registered in India by classifying it as Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). A significant amount was also remitted to Amnesty (India) without MHA’s approval under the FCRA.

Owing to these illegal practices of Amnesty, the previous government had also rejected the repeated applications of Amnesty to receive funds from overseas, the Home Ministry said. The Home Ministry said this bipartisan and purely legal approach towards Amnesty, under different governments, makes it clear that the entire fault lies in the dubious processes adopted by Amnesty.

Expressing “concerns” about the probe into Amnesty International (AI), the European Union said it hopes the human rights agency can continue its work in India.