India: Serious concerns over fair trial : Amnesty International Australia
Amnesty International Australia
Published on 27/06/2008
Delay in the trial process of jailed and award-winning human rights defender Dr. Binayak Sen followed by arrest of T.G. Ajay, also a human rights defender who attended his trial heightens serious doubts about Dr. Sen getting a fair trial at a Raipur district court in India, Amnesty International said on 25 June 2008.
Detained since 14 May 2007 Dr. Sen is facing numerous charges including under the Chhattisgarh State Public Security Act, 2005 (CSPSA), which criminalises “unlawful activities” and being a member of banned “terrorist organizations”. If convicted, he could be sentenced to life imprisonment.
Dr. Sen is a pioneer in providing accessible health care for adivasis (indigenous communities) and mine workers in remote villages of Chhattisgarh. He is recipient of several awards in recognition of his work for more than two decades. As vice-president of India’s leading human rights organisation, the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), Dr. Sen had highlighted unlawful killings and other human rights abuses in the armed confrontations in Chhattisgarh between the security forces and the Salwa Judum, a private militia widely held to be supported by the state authorities, on the one hand, and armed guerrillas of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist) on the other.
Amnesty International called for Dr. Sen’s release soon after his arrest unless he was charged with a recognisably criminal offence - India: Chattisgarh government detains human rights defender, refuses to arrest police officials suspected of involvement in unlawful killings of adivasis. There are sufficient reasons to believe that the charges against him appear to be politically motivated. There has been no investigation so far into the allegations of unlawful killings of adivasis by Salwa Judum and the state police in Santoshpur which he had highlighted prior to his arrest. The authorities held him for seven months without proper filing of charges; in the meantime, he was denied bail; and was kept in solitary confinement for three weeks in March-April 2008; many of the charges against him stem from laws that contravene international standards. His trial, which commenced on 30 April, is now adjourned to 1 July.
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A PLEA TO TAKE UP THE CASE OF FILM-MAKER AJAY T G, HELD ON FALSE CHARGES IN CHHATTISGARH
This is an appeal to you to actively campaign for the freedom for film-maker Ajay T.G, who was recently arrested in Bhilai under the Chhattisgarh Special Public Safety Act (like Dr. Binayak Sen) on charges on sedition!
Ajay, who would be about 35, hails originally from Kerala. Coming from a very ordinary family, he has been involved in CPI politics and is still an office-bearer of the local youth federation. He learned film-making at “Jan Darshan” an effort of journalist Lalit Surjan (of Deshbandhu fame) to train local youth in the audio-visual media.
As a research assistant of the well known sociologist Jonathan Parry of the London School of Economics, Ajay made several films on the interface of caste and class among the permanent workmen of the Bhilai Steel Plant, which were widely appreciated
As a member of PUCL, he had the courage to accompany several fact-finding teams including into fake encounters, and capture on film the statements of victims. (Presumably it is this activity of Ajay’s that is being dubbed “sedition”?) Read more
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Dr Binayak Sen as I know him: Dr Sandeep Pandey
Dr Sandeep Pandey
I first met Binayak, wife Ilina and their two daughters Aparajita and Pranhita at the conclusion of Pokaran to Sarnath ‘Global Peace March’ on 6th August, 1999 at the Central Tibetan Institute of Higher Learning in Sarnath, near Varanasi . Sarnath is the place where Gautam Buddha delivered sermon to his first five disciples after attaining enlightenment at Bodh Gaya. The peace march was symbolically between the place of destruction - Pokaran, to the place of peace - Sarnath. It began exactly a year after on the day when India tested the nuclear weapons in 1998 and concluded on the Hiroshima Day. The objective of the peace march was total global nuclear disarmament. Ilina had also brought with her drawings made by some children on the theme of nuclear disarmament. While the march was in progress for 88 days and 1500 kms, the Sen family was busy organizing activities in Raipur and their work area in its support. We also later got a chance to work together for the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace (CNDP), a national level platform of organizations and individuals committed towards nuclear disarmament.
Dr. Binayak Sen is currently in Raipur jail. He has been targeted under the draconian Chattisgarh Special Public Security Act, 2005, and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 2004, to silence the voices of humanity and justice. He is charged with sedition and conspiracy to wage war against the state, among other things. His trail has begun after a year in jail and his bail has been refused even by the Supreme Court. The six prosecution witnesses, out of a total of 89, who have been presented in court so far have failed to stand the cross examination. There doesn’t seem to be an iota of evidence against him. Yet, he is being illegally detained so that nobody dare question the experiment of Salwa Judum in Chattisgarh which legitimizes extra-constitutional violence and pits adivasis against adivasis. Binayak, who is the Chattisgarh General Secretary of nationally the most well known human rights organization, People’s Union for Civil Liberties, which was founded by none other than Loknayak Jayaprakash Narayan, exposed the killing of three teachers and one student, all innocent, in Gopapalli, Dist. Dantewada on 4th November, 2004, which was being projected as an encounter by the police. In November 2005 Binayak organized an all India team of human rights activists to visit Dantewada and study the systematic decimation, rape, loot, arson of ordinary adivasis and their properties by the police and Special Police Officers in the name of Salwa Judum. Binayak also objected to the brutal oppression by police of adivasis who were opposing the take over of their lands in Bastar for setting up a Tata-Essar industry. How could the Chattisgarh government tolerate Binayak who was out to expose what they claim as their successful experiment of countering the Naxalites through a ’self motivated people’s movement,’ the Salwa Judum?
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Sign the petition on Abuse of State Power Against Indian Journalists
Sign the petition
To: President and Prime Minister of India
We condemn the action of the Gujarat police in foisting a case of sedition on The Times of India, the editor of its Ahmedabad edition and other staffers for criticizing the choice of O P Mathur as the police commissioner of Ahmedabad.
The action of the police is not only plainly vindictive and a threat to media freedoms but a perverse misuse of laws supposedly meant to protect national security and the lives of citizens. As the Editors Guild of India has rightly pointed out sedition is a charge which was slapped on the Indian media by the colonial rulers during the freedom struggle and its abuse against the media today negates the freedom granted to the citizens by the Constitution.
We also note with grave concern that elsewhere in the country too there are attempts by those in power to use anti-terror or anti-sedition laws to muzzle dissenting voices of artists, journalists, academics and human rights defenders who are telling unpalatable truths.
Some of the clear examples of this alarming trend, which threatens Indian democracy, are the arrests of human rights activists Dr Binayak Sen in Chhattisgarh and Lachit Bordloi in Assam, journalists Prashant Rahi in Uttarakhand, Praful Jha in Chattisgarh and P. Govind Kutty in Kerala. The most recent case of such abuse of state power is the arrest of independent filmmaker and journalist Ajay TG under the notorious Chhattisgarh State Public Security Act on 5 May 2008.
We demand the unconditional withdrawal of charges against all these activists and journalists and the setting up of an independent commission to look into the misuse of anti-terror laws by state authorities. We further demand the scrapping of all legislation that violates the fundamental freedoms enshrined in the Indian Constitution.
Sincerely,
The Undersigned
Sign the petition
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International Federation of Health and Human Rights Organisations calls for immediate release of human rights activist Binayak Sen
Following the lead of other organisations worldwide, International Federation of Health and Human Rights Organisations sent a letter to a number of government officials in India to urge them to release Mr Binayak Sen, a medical doctor and human rights activist who has been in custody for over a year. Essential in the work of IFHHRO and its members is the defence of health professionals such as Dr Sen, who are promoting the implementation of the Right to Health and who are threatened by State agencies because they are exactly doing what their profession and international law expects them to do.
The letter urges the authorities to release Dr Sen immediately, to start an inquiry into his unlawful arrest and detention, and to ensure that redress will take place. IFHHRO also calls on national and international organisations of health professionals such as the Indian Medical Association and the World Medical Association to protest against the detention of Dr Sen and insist on his immediate release, as well as on international human rights organisations to join actions against the detention of Dr Sen.
Download Letter (as pdf)
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Gallery
From freebinayaksen.org- Chief of Police of Indian State under Fire for Human Rights Record at Berkeley Conference
- Letter by concerned academics to the Director-General of Police, Chhattisgarh
- Scrap Salwa Judum : Brigandry in the name of self-defence
- UPDATE On Dr. Binayak Sen’s TRIAL (15 Sep 2008)
- The Right to a Fair Trial Compromised in the Name of Security: The Case of Dr. Binayak Sen
- Updates from Google News
- Chhattisgarh DGP under Fire for Human Rights Record at Berkeley ... - MyNews.in
- BINAYAK SEN - ZNet
- Dada (Original version - English) - MediaPart
- Spiritual guru offers to mediate between government, Maoists - Fresh News
- Community to protest Indian police official's participation in UC ... - World Sikh News
- Living to tell the tale of Tyranny - Express Buzz
- Reports From Indian Media
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