Human rights organization Amnesty International will pay fines of more than 7.5 million euros in India for financial crimes. The investigative agency said on Friday that Amnesty violated foreign funding laws by using foreign donations to expand its local activities. The organization denounced the “witch hunt” targeted by the authorities against human rights activists.

The investigative agency said Amnesty India was fined $6.5 million for accepting illegal foreign donations. Former Amnesty director Aakar Patel is also expected to pay a further $1.3 million in fines. In connection with the investigation, Amnesty’s India bank account was frozen in 2020.

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Critics have long accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government of complicating the lives of activists and non-governmental organizations with strict financial regulations and restrictions on foreign funding. In 2015, a year after Modi took office, the Indian government froze the bank accounts of a branch of the environmental organization Greenpeace India.

A sedition case was opened against Amnesty in 2016 after the organization raised allegations of human rights abuses in the disputed Kashmir region. In 2018, investigators raided Amnesty’s Bangalore office. Internal documents from the organization were later leaked to the media, according to Amnesty. “It has become routine for the Indian government to pressure its critics with false accusations under repressive laws,” Amnesty said on Twitter. The latest allegations are “significantly untrue”. (AFP)