India has fined the local branch of Amnesty International about $6.5 million for financial crimes following an investigation that the human rights group called “persistent harassment.”
The Law Enforcement Administration, the agency that investigates financial crime in the country, said on Friday that Amnesty violated India’s funding rules by using overseas donations to expand its domestic operations.
The agency said in a statement that the international organization must pay a $6.5 million fine and its former director, Akar Patel, must pay an additional $1.3 million fine.
Amnesty International has not yet commented on the announcement of the fine.
The organization ceased operations in India in 2020 after the government froze its bank accounts. She said at the time that she felt she was the victim of “the ongoing persecution of human rights groups by the Indian government without merit”.
Amnesty International and other non-governmental organizations consider themselves victims of persecution by the Hindu nationalist government of Narendra Modi for criticizing the treatment of Indian minorities and condemning abuses committed in conflict zones, especially in Kashmir.
Amnesty was prosecuted for sedition after organizing a 2016 conference on human rights violations in Kashmir. The charges were later dropped.
Then in 2018, the Department of Law Enforcement raided his offices in Bangalore (south).
Earlier this year, Patel was unable to leave the country due to legal proceedings and was prevented from boarding a flight bound for the US at Bangalore airport by the Central Bureau of Investigation, India’s investigative agency.
