A petition was filed before Kerala High Court on Tuesday seeking to declare that the arrest and detention for waving black flags or wearing a black dress in protest are illegal and sought an order to grant compensation to the persons who have been booked for waving black flags at the chief minister and ministers.
The petitioner said that, on June 11, during the protest against the chief minister of Kerala, police officers in Ernakulam blocked two members of the transgender community and took them into custody for wearing black dresses near Kaloor Metro Station.
The petitioner stated that waving black flags is probably the most innocuous of all ways to express dissent in a democracy, but the police and the administration seem to be in no mood to accept it as permissible behaviour. Hundreds of people are put behind bars almost daily for staging such protests and the security personnel often deal ruthlessly with the ‘offenders’ dragging them by their collar and assaulting them before hauling them up in fortified police vehicles.