Hindu, IE, WSJ, others on Binayak’s bail
Compiled by Shalini
A smattering of different news articles below. Everyone expresses happiness at Binayak’s bail, except Raman Singh–who expresses only philosopshy. The family is thrilled that the the 2 year ordeal is over … but the CPI reminds that the case against Binayak still stands–and asks for the charges to be dropped. PUCL -UP also reiterates our other demands around repealing the draconian CSPSA, and an end to Salwa Judum (see Bobby Ramakant’s article below). Mary Ganguli tells us that the who’s who of Delhi lawyers showed up at the hearing yesterday (no wonder the judges were cowed into producing a decent judgment in one minute’s time). The IE has a nice photo 
… and the WSJ mentions number of people dead in Naxalite violence, as if it has some relevance to the issue at hand!
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Binayak Sen gets bail at last, family relieved
The Hindu
New Delhi/Raipur (IANS) It was a day to remember for Indian rights activists, civil society and, of course, his family as the iconic Binayak Sen was on Monday granted bail by the Supreme Court after being held for more than two years under unproven charges of links with Maoists in Chhattisgarh.
Dr. Binayak Sen, 59, an award-winning paediatrician and national vice-president of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), was jailed May 14, 2007, and accused of acting as a courier for an alleged Maoist lodged in jail – making his family, friends and many admirers cry out for justice.
“I am extremely relieved that this ordeal of two years has finally ended. The judiciary has stood up for what is correct. He was held on trumped up charges,” his wife Ilina Sen told IANS in Raipur.
A Supreme Court vacation bench of Justice Markandey Katju and Justice Deepak Verma granted him bail even as voices for his release have grown louder.
“This is good news, but it is delayed by two years. Justice should have been done by granting him bail two years ago,” said Rajendra K. Sail, president of the Chhattisgarh PUCL.
Dr. Binayak Sen had been lodged at the Raipur Central Jail under the stringent Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act.
Former law minister Shanti Bhushan, appearing for Dr. Sen, had earlier pleaded with the court to accord an urgent hearing to the bail plea in view of his precarious health condition.
His wife Ilina and daughter Pranhita flew in to Raipur from Mumbai as soon as the news of the court order came.
When asked if her husband would continue working for public health in tribal areas of Chhattisgarh, Ilina said: “I know that the health services that he was providing have suffered in the last two years. But at the moment I am waiting for him to be released and want him to recover from his health problems.”
“I am overwhelmed at the decision of the Supreme Court and we thank people of the country, especially journalists, who have supported us in our fight,” said his brother Dipankar Sen.
Mr. Dipankar, a trader in the commodities market in Antwerp, Belgium, is currently in India and has been fighting for his brother’s freedom.
The state’s government has kept silent over the apex court’s decision. Earlier, it had even opposed Dr. Sen’s plea to be treated at his alma mater, the Christian Medical College in Vellore, Tamil Nadu.
Gautam Kumar Bandyopadhyay, a rights activist and convenor of NGO Nadi Ghati Morcha, described Dr. Binayak Sen’s bail as a “victory of human rights” in Chhattisgarh.
“It’s the victory of human rights in the state. Dr. Sen’s bail is a blow to the state’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, which is targeting people who try and raise (their voice) against human rights violations in Chhattisgarh.”
On May 4, former law minister Ram Jethmalani, appearing for Dr. Binayak Sen, had contended that despite the case against him having been demolished in a trial court, the Chhattisgarh High Court was not entertaining his bail plea.
Dr. Sen’s younger daughter Aparajita, who is in Delhi, said she cannot wait for the “scattered family” of four to be united. A Class 12 student in Mumbai, she was in the capital on Monday for a National School of Drama workshop.
“My mother, sister and I have spent the last two years in struggle and hoping…it was painful living without my father and knowing he was in jail,” she sighed.
“The family will finally be united,” she said.
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Civil rights activist Binayak Sen gets bail, thanks supporters
Express news service
Raipur: After the apex court granted him bail on Monday, human rights activist and Peoples’ Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) leader Dr Binayak Sen expressed his gratitude to all those who had supported him during his hour of crisis. While he said he was confident of being cleared of all charges against him, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh said “let the law take its own course”.
“I thank everyone who supported me,” said Sen at the sessions court, where the trial against him is progressing, after hearing about the Supreme Court decision.
However, the Chief Minister said, “Our stand has been clear right from the beginning. Let the law take its own course. We have full faith in the judiciary.”
Asked whether Sen got the bail as the prosecution could not put up a strong case against him, Singh said, “The bail has nothing to do with the ongoing trial in the court.”
Sen has been in Raipur jail since May 14, 2007, for his alleged links with the outlawed Maoists. He was arrested under the provisions of the controversial Chhattisgarh Public Security Act, 2005, and Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, on the charges of acting as a courier for an alleged Naxalite ideologue, Narayan Sanyal, who is in jail.
Human rights activists, NGOs and his supporters across the world had unleashed a “free Binayak Sen campaign”, mounting pressure on the state and the Central governments to free the jailed activist. They described Sen as “a distinguished paediatrician and tireless human rights activist, who is being held under draconian state laws”.
However, the state Government has been maintaining so far that it was for the court to take a decision about his release.
State PUCL president Rajendra Sail welcomed the apex court move, saying “he should have got bail two years ago”. “There is a sense of relief among Sen’s supporters and all those who have expressed solidarity. Our stand has been vindicated,” he added.
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Binayak Sen released on bail today
By Bobby Ramakant
Thaiindian
Bail was granted to the paediatrician Dr Binayak Sen who was jailed in Raipur prison since more than two years now, on alleged false charges of abetting maoist activities in Chattisgarh, sedition and waging war against the state.
“This committed advocate of civil liberties has spent over three decades in the service of some of the poorest and most underserved communities and raised his voice relentlessly against atrocities in the State of Chhattisgarh. The imprisonment of Dr Binayak Sen is symbolic of gross injustice and violation of democratic values by the State and the suppression of the voices of human rights defenders” said Dr Sandeep Pandey, Magsaysay Awardee (2002) and member, National Presidium, Lok Rajniti Manch (People’s Politics Front – PPF).
The ‘Jonathan Mann for Global Health and Human Rights’ Awardee (2008) Dr Binayak Sen, who is a well-known paediatrician and human rights defender in Chhattisgarh, had completed two years on 14 May 2009 in a Raipur prison.
“Last year, twenty-two Nobel laureates from around the world had appealed to the Indian government to allow Dr Binayak Sen to receive the 2008 Jonathan Mann Award for Global Health and Human Rights in person at the end of May 2008. But Indian government denied the permission and Dr Sen’s wife had received the coveted global health award on his behalf” informed the firebrand social activist Arundhati Dhuru, who is also the national convener of National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM).
Dr Binayak Sen of Raipur, Chhattisgarh, India, who has helped establish a hospital serving poor mine workers in the region, founded a health and human rights organization that supports community health workers in 20 villages, and is the general secretary of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), has been imprisoned in Raipur for two years now without trial as a result of unproven allegations that he was a naxal courier. Not only Dr Sen denies committing any crime, but his lifetime contribution to strengthen democracy and fight for the most underserved communities defies such accusations. The public pressure was mounting in many parts of the world demanding release of Dr Binayak Sen and undoubtedly his release today on bail will give a positive ray of hope.
The PUCL-Chhattisgarh Unit, with Dr. Binayak Sen’s active leadership as its General Secretary, had exposed the government sponsored so-called campaign Salwa-Judum in Chhattisgarh which legitimizes extra-constitutional violence and pits adivasis against adivasis.
In Lucknow, a candle light vigil was held in Hazratganj to mark the two years of Dr Sen’s imprisonment and to up the demand for his release. Many civil society organizations including Uttar Pradesh Voluntary Health Association (UPVHA), Vatsalya, Sahayog, Humsafar, Health-Watch, Samadhan, Asha Parivar, National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM), Lok Rajniti Manch (People’s Politics Front – PPF) had jointly called for the release of Dr Sen.
“The activists were not only demanding release of Dr Sen who was released today but also that the draconian Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act should be repealed in the undercover of which grotesque human rights violations take place in the state and the Salwa Judum be winded up. Both the other demands are still pending” said SR Darapuri, who is the Vice President of People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) in UP.
- Bobby Ramakant
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CPI seeks withdrawal of all cases against Binayak Sen
PTI
New Delhi, May 25 (PTI) Welcoming the bail granted by Supreme Court to prominent civil rights activist Binayak Sen, CPI today asked the government to set him free by withdrawing all cases against him.
“Foisting of cases against such eminent persons is a shame on our democracy. The time has now come for the government to withdraw all cases against him and he must be set free immediately,” party National Secretary D Raja told PTI here.
The Apex court today ordered the release of Sen, who was lodged in a Chhattisgarh jail since two years. A prominent PUCL leader, Sen was arrested by the Chhattisgarh police for allegedly colluding with certain naxalite leaders, a charge denied by the activist.
Raja also demanded dismantling of the private anti-Naxal army Salwa Judum, saying even Home Minister P Chidambaram had earlier admitted that this outfit was a “non-state actor”. PTI
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from press release:
Senior Advocate Shanti Bhooshan (Former Law Minister of India) represented Dr. Binayak Sen, and large number of senior lawyers was present in the Supreme Court in large numbers. Prominent among these are: Mr. Rajendar Sachar, Former Chief Justice of Delhi High Court, Adv Soli Sorabjee, who had argued Dr. Sen’s application in the Supreme Court in the first place, Adv Sanjay Parikh, Adv Colin Gonsalves. A large number of human rights activists, intellectuals and people’s organisations were also present in the Supreme Court today. The Order was passed by the DB comprising of Justice Markandey Katju and Justice Deepak Verma.
As Binayak himself was in court in Raipur at the time, his lawyers were able to inform him immediately of the Supreme Court decision.
Mary Ganguli
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India Court Grants Bail to Activist
WSJ
By KRISHNA POKHAREL
NEW DELHI — India’s Supreme Court on Monday granted bail to Binayak Sen, a noted doctor and human rights activist in India’s impoverished state of Chhattisgarh, after two years of imprisonment on charges of aiding Maoist insurgents.
[Binayak Sen] AFP/Getty Images
In this picture taken February 2008, Indian health worker and human rights activist Binayak Sen waves as he is taken to a court in a police van in Raipur.
Supporters of Dr. Sen, who denies the charges, cheered the news. “There is a sense of relief and jubilation among the family and friends,” said Rajendra Sail, president for the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, a national human rights organization, in Chhattisgarh. “It’s a moral victory for those who stand for human rights.” Dr. Sen is the general secretary for the PUCL and visited jails in Chhattisgarh where he treated prisoners, including prominent Naxalites, as the Maoists also are known.
Dr. Sen had worked among the tribal people of Chhattisgarh for 25 years when, in May 2007, he was arrested and put in prison in the state capital of Raipur, charged with passing notes from a Maoist leader he was treating in jail to someone outside the prison. Dr. Sen denies passing notes or committing any crime, and says his activities in the jail were constantly supervised by prison authorities.
Dr. Sen’s supporters say the 59-year-old has been caught in the middle of the long murky war between the government and the Maoist insurgents. Governments in states affected by the Maoist rebellion in country’s center and south, including Chhattisgarh, have backed crackdowns on indigenous villages they suspect of supporting the Naxalites. Many of these villages sit on valuable mining land. Dr. Sen was a vocal critic of how the state’s drive for resource development was hurting tribal villagers.
The Naxalite movement, founded in 1967, seeks to overthrow the Indian government and has been a persistent threat to India’s national security. In the recent national election, Naxalites attacked a number of voting centers and disrupted polling. Since the start of this year, 341 people have died in Naxal-related violence; 119 of them in Chhattisgarh alone, according to New Delhi-based South Asia Terrorism Portal.
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