THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: If Norwegian woman Janne-Mette Johansson visiting Kerala was asked to leave the country for participating in the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) protest in Kochi last week, Swiss national Jonathan Baud got stuck for three months in Kerala, including spending time in the Viyyur sub-jail, after he took part in a memorial meet of a Maoist, who was killed in Andhra Pradesh, in Thrissur in 2014.
Though police arrested him from the meeting place at Thriprayar for suspected Maoist links, they failed to establish in the court that he had any ulterior motives or any Maoist connections.
The Kerala High Court quashed all charges levelled against him.
However, he had to spend around two weeks in the sub-jail as a remand prisoner and around three months in Kerala as his passport was surrendered in the court.
It was not an isolated incident in Kerala. In 1992, the Mundakkayam police in Kottayam had registered a case against Canadian national Patrick Marini and his host, a pentecostal pastor, for allegedly attending prayer meetings with an aim to propagate a particular religion.
Though the police registered a case against both, the Canadian, who was a professor, managed to leave the country.
Later, the case against them was scrapped by the local court after censuring the pastor.
Before the Norwegian, German national Jakob Lindenthal, who is a student on an exchange programme at IIT-Madras, was asked to leave India reportedly by Bureau of Immigration officials recently after he took part in a protest against the CAA in Chennai.
According to a senior state police officer, the foreigners who reach here on tourist visas are not allowed to indulge in such activities.
Attending a rally against a law enacted by the Indian parliament is a serious offence.
Apart from invoking various provisions under the Foreigners Act, 1946 and Foreigners (Amendment) Act, 2004, the accused can be booked under Section 121 of the Indian Penal Code Act (waging or attempting to wage war, or abetting waging of war against the Government of India). Flouting provisions of the two Acts can attract a jail term of up to five years.
Further, attending rallies against an elected government in a foreign country would strain the diplomatic relations between the two countries and would even attract deportation and ‘no-entry’ stamp for the foreigner, the officer said.
Many foreigners who attend programmes, meetings or rallies here are unaware of the local laws.
Advocate K U Muhammed Sageer, who appeared for Buad in the Judicial First Class Magistrate Court, Kodungallur, said Baud, who was a PhD student in the University of Bern, Switzerland, and was doing research in Western communism, attended the memorial meeting of Sinoj, a Maoist activist from Kerala who was killed while making country bombs on Andhra-Karnataka border, was unaware that it was a banned outfit in India.
Moreover, he didn’t even know the different Left political parties in the state like CPI, CPM, CPM (ML) and so on.
Norwegian a frequent visitor to Kochi
KOCHI: Norwegian national Janne-Mette Johansson reached India on September 15 on a six-month tourist visa. She arrived in Mumbai first. She visited tourist and religious destinations in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan, New Delhi, West Bengal and Kerala.
She had planned to travel to Assam and Tripura but cancelled the trip due to the ongoing CAA-related protests in Northeast India. She reached Kochi on September 16. She stayed in a hotel in Fort Kochi.
On December 23, she took part in the anti-CAA long march from Gandhi Circle to Vasco Da Gama Square organised by various organisations including CPI.
She had planned to travel to New Delhi this week but following directives of the foreigner regional registration office (FRRO), she left the country on Friday night.
She has been a frequent traveller to India for over five years -- from September to January.
She had visited Fort Kochi in January 2018, December 2016 and January 2014. She also has followers on social media like Facebook and Instagram from across India.
She also frequently posts messages on alleged human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir.
She had also shared her personal experience of queuing up before an ATM during the demonetisation period.