India: End State Support for Vigilantes - Human Rights Watch

Prosecute Rights Violators and Protect Internally Displaced Communities

Human Rights Watch

“The Chhattisgarh government denies supporting Salwa Judum, but dozens of eyewitnesses have described police participating in violent Salwa Judum raids on villages – killing, looting, and burning their hamlets. ” - Jo Becker, children’s rights advocacy director at Human Rights Watch

(Raipur, July 15, 2008) – The Indian central and Chhattisgarh state governments should hold accountable government security forces and state-backed vigilantes responsible for attacking, killing, and forcibly displacing tens of thousands of people in armed operations against Maoist rebels since mid-2005 in southern Chhattisgarh, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today.
Human Rights Watch called for an end to all government support for unlawful activities by the Salwa Judum vigilantes, and urged affected state governments to take immediate measures to protect the tens of thousands of persons displaced. Human Rights Watch also called on Maoist rebels known as Naxalites to end attacks on civilians and other abuses.

The 182-page report, “‘Being Neutral Is Our Biggest Crime’: Government, Vigilante, and Naxalite Abuses in India’s Chhattisgarh State,” documents human rights abuses against civilians, particularly indigenous tribal communities, caught in a deadly tug-of-war between government security forces and the vigilante Salwa Judum and Naxalites.

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July 16, 2008 | Filed Under announcements, statements | Leave a Comment 

Human Rights Watch says India backing violent vigilante group that has displaced thousands

Yahoo India News
Tue, Jul 15 05:28 PM

NEW DELHI (AP) _ Indian forces are collaborating with a vigilante group that carries out brutal attacks that have displaced tens of thousands of people in eastern India in an attempt to crush a communist uprising, a human rights group said Tuesday. Human Rights Watch called on the Indian federal government and the Chhattisgarh state government to end their support for the Salwa Judum vigilantes and take immediate steps to protect civilians caught in the fighting.

“The Chhattisgarh government denies supporting Salwa Judum, but dozens of eyewitnesses have described police participating in violent Salwa Judum raids on villages killing, looting and burning hamlets,” Jo Becket of Human Rights Watch said in a statement. The New York-based rights group also called on the communist rebels to end their attacks on civilians and stop recruiting child soldiers.

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July 16, 2008 | Filed Under Press Reports | Leave a Comment 

MEDICAL EVIDENCE SUPPORTS DETAINEES’ ACCOUNTS OF TORTURE IN US CUSTODY

Cambridge, Mass. (PRWEB) June 18, 2008 – Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) has published a landmark report documenting medical evidence of torture and ill-treatment inflicted on 11 men detained at US facilities in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantánamo Bay, who were never charged with any crime. The physical and psychological evaluation of the detainees and documentation of the crimes are based on internationally accepted standards for clinical assessment of torture claims. The report also details the severe physical and psychological pain and long-term disability that has resulted from abusive and
unlawful US interrogation practices. Read more

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July 16, 2008 | Filed Under solidarity | Leave a Comment 

Release Ajay TG Campaign getting momentum

Film Maker in Prison

Ajay TG has a right to make films.
Ajay TG has the right to show his films.

We have the right to see his films.

We strongly protest and condemn the arrest of independent documentary filmmaker
and freelance journalist Ajay TG by the Chattisgarh Police.

We demand his immediate release from prison and the dropping of all charges against him.

We reiterate that it is not possible to silence
the voice of dissent, the expressions of our conscience or even the reporting of facts
by intimidation, imprisonment and the politics of branding.

Filmmakers, artists and activists distributed hundreds of RELEASE AJAY TG pamphlets at the opening ceremony of the 10th Osian’s Cinefan - Festival of Asian and Arab Cinema, in New Delhi on the 11th of July 2008.

Recipient of the Osian’s Lifetime Achievement Award, renowned filmmaker Mrinal Sen signed the petition condemning Ajay TG’s arrest.

Demanding Ajay TG’s release, Mrinal Sen said, “I am with you. I wish I was 30 years younger so I could have physically joined you all in this campaign.”

A Committee for the Release of Ajay TG has been formed with eminent personalities such as Habib Tanvir, Aruna Roy, Dr. Kamal Chenoy, Dr. Banwari Lal Sharma, Dr. Usha Ramanathan, Harsh Mander, Siddharth Vardharajan, Sudhir Pattnaik, Ranjan Palit and Amar Kanwar.

Also a new website http://www.releaseajaytg.in/ is launched by the campaign committee

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July 15, 2008 | Filed Under announcements | 1 Comment 

Dr Binayak Sen: The Movie!

Indo-Asian News Service
Monday, July 14, 2008: (Mumbai):

It’s an incarnation of the classic love-torn couple Devdas and Paro as never seen before - fighting each other as political adversaries in Sudhir Mishra’s version of Devdas that goes on the floor in August.

“It’s more like William Shakespeare’s Hamlet as applied to the politics of India,” said Mishra. He will shoot Devdas in the deserts of Rajasthan.

“I want those vast stretches of sand for dramatic emphasis,” said Mishra who has made films like Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi and Chameli.

The truth is never far away from Mishra’s cinema. He now wants to make a new genre of cinema, what he calls a ‘mockumentary’.

“It’d be shot in the documentary style. The events would all be dramatic recreations of real incidents. I’m planning to apply this format to my film on the life of doctor-activist Binayak Sen, the child specialist in Chhattisgarh who has been accused of sedition and jailed.

“It is interesting to film the lives of real characters who are caught in a moral crisis. In that sense the life of Binayak Sen is no different from that of Hamlet or Devdas,” he said.

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July 15, 2008 | Filed Under Press Reports | Leave a Comment 

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