India orders Greenpeace to shut down

Greenpeace activists participate in a candle-lit vigil near the India Gate war memorial in New Delhi on April 11, 2001.

NEW DELHI // India has cancelled Greenpeace International’s license to operate and given the group 30 days to close down, citing financial fraud and falsification of data, the environment watchdog said on Friday.

Prime minister Narendra Modi’s government has turned the spotlight on foreign charities since he took office last year, accusing some of trying to hamper projects on social and environmental grounds.

Greenpeace has previously complained to The National about a “pattern of harassment by the government”, including having its access to foreign funding blocked, and its accounts froze.

Under the latest order issued by authorities in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu where Greenpeace is registered, the government said the organisation had violated the provisions of law by engaging in fraudulent dealings.

Greenpeace denied any wrongdoing and said the closure was a “clumsy tactic” to silence dissent.

“This is an extension of the deep intolerance for differing viewpoints that sections of this government seem to harbour,” said Vinuta Gopal, the interim executive director of Greenpeace.

A government official confirmed that the closure order had been issued on Wednesday but did not elaborate.

An intelligence bureau report, leaked to the media last June, advised the government that NGOs were “negatively impacting economic development” and that Greenpeace India in particular was “a threat to national economic security”.

The organisation had organised “massive efforts to take down India’s coal fired power plants and coal mining activity,” the report said.

In recent months the federal government has toughened rules governing charities and cancelled the registration of nearly 9,000 groups for failing to declare details of overseas donations.

* Reuters