Report of the 3rd General Body Meeting of APCR

Ahmadabad 28 June 09: The 3rd annual general body meeting of the Association for the Protection of Civil Rights (APCR) held here to review the last year activities and chalk out the next year plan. While welcoming the members of APCR and special invitees of the meeting, Secretary of the association, Prof. K A Siddique Hassan conceived his welcome said, now APCR has stepped out of its infancy period. During the last year, we are able make many achievements on various fronts. For the same, I am grateful members, friends and workers of APCR especially our President Mr. Y H Muchhala, Director of Training Division, Dr. Shakeel Ahmed and Coordinator, Mr. Mahtab Alam for their concentrated efforts. In a situation when our rights are being violated, it is necessary that there is urgent need of watchdogs but only watching of civil and human rights violation is not going to help much. So, we have to come out with practical measures and have to take strong initiatives to stop the same. APCR has been formed with similar vision. The services of APCR are a basic need of the society in India, he added.
Following the welcome speech the book ''Human & Civil Rights Defender's Resource Manual' was released by the President Mr. Yusuf Hatim Muchhala. The manual is prepared by the research division of APCR for the benefit of both legal- social workers as well as general readers as ready reference on criminal justice, legal procedures, right to information and issues related to the protection of civil and human rights. Afterwards, Dr. Shakeel Ahmad presented the report of activities for the period 2008-09.
In his presidential remarks, Mr. Muchhala, there is no doubt, we have made a worth mentioning progress during last year but we should keep in our mind that, we have miles to go. The question of identity, safety and security of the marginalized groups and weaker sections remains same despite all constitutional provisions. There fundamental rights are being violated by the very same agencies, which are supposed to protect it. Many draconian laws are still part of our legal system; few are passed very recently in the name of combating terror. In the situation of rampant civil rights violations, we have to struggle at different levels- from local to national. We have to focus on precautionary measures rather than defensive ones. People should be trained to take aggressive legal actions.
Taking in to consideration of overall situation of civil and human rights in India, a set of activities has been finalized at various levels. Some of the activities are like: public awareness programmes on socio legal issues in selected places for the masses e.g. Bhiwandi, Malegaon in Maharashtra; Bhopal, Indore and Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh; Murshidabad, Maldah and Kolkata in West Bengal; Lucknow, Azamgarh, Gorakhpur, etc. in UP and Jamia Nagar in Delhi, etc., Consultation meeting with senior Civil Rights Activists/Groups and Community Leaders on dealing with current situation of Civil Rights Violations in India, Campaign against 'anti-Terror' Laws, Campaign against rapid rise of communal fascism in Karnataka, Workshops for the students interested in Human and Civil Rights, etc.