On 06/02/2012, Srikanth Ramakrishnan <
parakara.ghoda@gmail.com> wrote:
> I agree with you completely. While I've never been dragged to a Police
> station, the Coimbatore Police made me delete ALL my photos on the camera,
> and the Bangalore Police took away my memory card.
> Do we need to send across a letter or something across to the Police?
>
> On Sun, Feb 5, 2012 at 2:40 AM, <
wheredevelsdare@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I thought Id bring up something thats been at the back of my mind for the
>> last few days. With offline activities increasing in the last couple of
>> months, it is a good sign for the project overall in India. However, we
>> sometimes tend to unintentionally ruffle a few feathers (or people wanting
>> to take advantage of the situation pretend that we have). This got me
>> thinking of what sort of backup we Wikipedians can expect if they get into
>> trouble whiles taking part in volunteer activities? I dont mean getting
>> caught doing something illegal, I mean any trouble whiles taking part in
>> or
>> organising routine activities. I dont mean to scare people, this is
>> something that is the result of recent happenings. In Mumbai, Wikipedians
>> have had to visit the Police Station twice in the last 3 months.
>>
>> First time we had a battery of people including Chapter Secretary Naveen
>> Francis, WMF Deputy Director Erik Moeller (who literally got off a flight
>> and walked into the cop station), our Legal brain Gautam John, WMF Trustee
>> Bishakha Dutta and WMF Advisor Achal Prabhala among others go down to the
>> police station as a political party threatened to stage a protest at our
>> event in November 2011.
>>
>> Last month, we had another visit to the police station during the
>> photowalk because a corporate house was paranoid when we took photographs
>> of their headquarters. Hisham, Gautam and Achal were all unavailable,
>> thankfully Bishakha was and she was able to get a legal opinion from some
>> lawyer friends that what we were doing was totally legal as it was not a
>> prohibited area. We cannot expect to fall back on such people all the
>> time,
>> after all they are here as volunteers as well (well, except for Erik and
>> Hisham).
>>
>> Reiterating, that though we were on the right side of the law, we were
>> dragged to the police. I am worried what the case would be if a formal
>> complaint or a case is filed against a Wikipedian (though Im hoping this
>> will never happen) to trouble or scare him, what assurance does he have
>> from the organisation? As most Wikipedians are doing volunteer-work in
>> their spare time, I think its highly important that there is some sort of
>> assurance that they will not be left to fend for themselves if something
>> unforeseen leaves them personally in a spot of bother. Could someone from
>> India Programs or WM-IN please advice the community of what sort of
>> back-up
>> and legal support/insurance the community can expect in the event of such
>> eventualities?
>>
>> Kind Regards,
>>
>>
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>
>
> --
> Regards,
> Srikanth Ramakrishnan.
> Wikipedia Coimbatore Meetup on February 12th.
>
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meetup/Coimbatore
> Aliens invaded Tamil Nadu, left their Spacship and now it is a Toll Plaza.
>
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:IVRCL-Vijayamangalam-Toll-Plaza.JPG
>