EVER QUESTIONED A REAL LIVE HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATOR?

This Saturday, come question Vishwa Ranjan, the head police official in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh, where police are responsible for:

jailing public health activist and civil rights leader Dr. Binayak Sen

widespread violence & brutality against the states’s Tribal communities

supporting and arming a militia which has razed 100s of villages and uprooted several hundred thousand people from their homes since 2005

Ranjan will be speaking at a conference at UC Berkeley on Saturday, and we need your help to ask him the tough questions that his local critics haven’t been able to ask. Join us, in solidarity with the embattled Tribal communities of the Indian state of Chhattisgarh!

Stand up to Chhattisgarh DGP Vishwa Ranjan
The Berkeley Conference on Indian Democracy
Saturday 9/27, 2:00 pm
8th Floor, Barrows Hall

More details:
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2008/india0708/
http://www.binayaksen.net/
http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/sep/18naxal.htm
http://www.rsf.org/IMG/pdf/Report_Chhattisgarh-2.pdf

Call for endorsements:

Please endorse the attached flyer, protesting the actions of Vishwa Ranjan, the Chief of Police of the Indian state of Chhattisgarh, who’ll be speaking at a UC Berkeley conference this Saturday (2pm, September 27, at Barrows Hall).The Chhattisgarh state government has been implicated in numerous human rights violations, including the imprisonment of noted physician and human rights activist Dr. Binayak Sen for the last 16 months, mass diplacement and disenfranchisement of approximately 300,000 tribals, and the sponsorship of the violent Salwa Judum militia movement.

Despite an international campaign to ensure due process, including an appeal signed by 22 Nobel laureates, Dr. Sen and other human rights activists, lawyers, and journalists continue to be harassed by police.The DGP (Director General of Police) of Chhattisgarh is an invited speaker at a panel during “Justice and the Law,” a conference on Indian democracy at UC Berkeley this weekend. Given his active role in silencing and vilifying human rights critics in his own state, it’s
critical for us to speak out.

We ask you to:

1. Endorse our flyer by sending email to freebinayaksen@gmail.com
2. Express your solidarity with the people of Chhattisgarh by attending the panel and supporting our representative who has been invited to participate in the panel to challenge the DGP:

Barrows Hall, UC Berkeley
Saturday, September 27, 2:00pm (show up at 1:30pm)

3. Demand that the DGP:
STOP supporting Salwa Judum,
STOP imprisoning human rights activists,
STOP silencing voices of dissent in Chhattisgarh
DROP CHARGES against and RELEASE political prisoners,