The Association for Protection of Civil Rights (APCR) is organising a pro-Rohingya event at the Press Club of India on May 19, 2025. The event called ‘Breaking the Silence: Justice for Rohingya Refugees’ will be attended by activists such as Prashant Bhushan, Harsh Mander and Colin Gonsalves as panelists. At least 2 of them have received significant funding from western governments and NGOs.
The Indian Government has maintained that Rohingyas in India are living here illegally and they must be deported. In recent days, the Government has upped the ante concerning the deportation of illegal immigrants, including Rohingyas.
Who are the members of APCR?
The APCR has Yusuf Hatim Muchhala serving as National President, P Usman as Vice President, Malik Mohtasim Khan as General Secretary and Nadeem Khan as National Secretary. Hatim is one of the Executive Members of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB).
Mohtasim is the Vice President of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind. He has been associated with JIH for nearly 20 years. He was the Zonal President of JIH Andhra Pradesh and Orissa between 2007-11. He served as the National Secretary of the organisation’s department of Community Affairs from 2019-23. Mohtasim is also a member of JIH’s highest decision making body, the Central Advisory Council and the convenor of its Central Political Committee.
Nadeem Khan is one of the founders of United Against Hate (UAH), an organisation that was heavily involved in the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). Khalid Saifi, another founder of UAH, was arrested in 2020 for his alleged role in the communal riots in Delhi. Saifi is accused of being one of the key conspirators behind the riots.
The Delhi Police booked Nadeem under sections 61, 196 and 353(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) for promoting enmity and unrest. The FIR lodged in the matter accused Nadeem of attempting to disrupt communal harmony in India.
The Foreign links of the panelists
Harsh Mander is associated with George Soros, a name that has gained a lot of prominence in Indian Politics over the past couple of years. Mander was the Chairman of George Soros’s Open Society Foundation’s Human Rights Initiative Advisory Board. His NGO Centre for Equity Studies has received significant funding from Christian Evangelical Organisations abroad.
Colin Gonsalves is the founder of the Human Rights Law Network (HRLN). The HRLN has received crores of rupees in funding from Christian Evangelical Organisations as well. In addition to it, the Open Society Institute and the European Commission have also funded it with crores of rupees in donations.
Western funding of Indian NGOs and Activists detrimental to India’s National Security Concerns and Economic Development has long been a source of distress for successive Indian Governments. Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had raised these concerns in light of the protests against the Koodankulam Nuclear Power Project in Tamil Nadu.
He had told a magazine, “There are NGOs, often funded from the United States and the Scandinavian countries, which are not fully appreciative of development challenges that our country faces.” Singh had accused western countries of engineering unrest in India and damaging India’s growth prospects without understanding the realities of the our circumstances.
