Alumni of Mount Carmel College, Bengaluru issued a solidarity statement for Disha Ravi, the 21-year-old climate change activist whom Delhi Police had arrested on the charge of sedition.
“We demand that the Delhi Police release her and the Bangalore Police and Karnataka government act to protect the constitutional rights of a woman resident of the state of Karnataka,” the statement signed by over 300 people read.
As co-founder of Fridays for Future in India, “She has coordinated with climate activists across the world to get politicians and corporations to act and undertake measures to prevent the world from getting worse”.
Ravi’s participation as a young woman of colour has helped bring attention to the vulnerabilities faced by marginalised groups of the developing world, the statement said.
The alumni have called Disha a model to emulate. “Her arrest, we believe, is a way to browbeat young, articulate women—which Mount Carmel College has produced for generations—into silent submission,” the statement read.
Disha Ravi was arrested on 14 February from her home in Bengaluru. She was then taken to Delhi where she was remanded to custody for five days.
She is accused of having edited a Google toolkit which climate activist Greta Thunberg had tweeted this month as part of global support for farmers’ protest. She is also accused of “sharing and spreading” information in this document.
A series of protests were held in Bengaluru in support of Disha Ravi ever since her arrest. Climate change activists have accused the Delhi Police of not following arrest and remand procedures in the case. The police have, however, claimed that they followed all procedures necessary.
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