In collaboration with @maara_Blr
@project_polis is launching Profiles of Dissent. This new series centers on remarkable voices of dissent& courage, & their personal & political histories, as a way to reclaim our public spaces.
We begin with #VaravaraRao https://thepolisproject.com/profiles-of-dissent/

‘Political Prisoner’ is a category of criminal offense that sits most egregiously in any civilized society, especially ​in ​countries that call themselves liberal democracies. #ReleaseAllPoliticalPrisoners

It is a thought crime: the crime of thinking, acting, speaking, probing, reporting, questioning, demanding rights, and, more importantly, exercising one’s citizenship.

But these inhumane incarcerations do not just target private acts of courage, they are bound together with the fundamental questions of citizenship, and with people’s capacity to hold the State accountable.

Especially States that are unilaterally and fundamentally remaking their relationship with their people. The assault on the fundamental rights has been consistent & ongoing at a global level & rights-bearing citizens are transformed into consuming subjects of a surveillance State

A fearful, weak State silences the voice of dissent. Once it has established repression as a response to critique, it has only one way to go: become a regime of authoritarian terror, where it is the source of dread and fear to its citizens.

How do we live, survive, respond to this moment?
#ProfilesofDissent is a way to question & critique the State that has used legal means to crush dissent illegally. It also intends to ground the idea that, despite the repression, voices of resistance continue to emerge every day

Thanks to @Maara_Blr for creating -- READ ALOUD: Ideas Can Never Be Arrested.

Where they say,
"Read Aloud, then, is resistance as/and remembrance.
Even as bodies have been erased or made fragile, and memories have blurred—this text is a reminder
that ideas cannot be arrested.
They can and will travel.
They will resound.
They will be read aloud."