Posts Tagged ‘Bangalore
Bangalore Protest Report
Quick Update
- We had about 400-500 people at the town hall at the peak of the meeting.
- The participation was diverse – many many groups came in a good numbers. Strong show of solidarity! {Everybody mobilised well}
- Highlighting quotes from the speakers:
- Justice Saldanha says, “ It is not a judgment but an atrocity of the worst order.”
- Veerabhadra Chennamalla Swamiji, from Nedumamudi Mutt, says, “Its an undemocratic judgment, and it is an assault on justice”.
- From Popular Front of India, Usman Baig says, “Judiciary is also becoming fascist like the executive and legislature.”
- Advocate Balan, from AITUC, says, “This is judicial terrorism”
- U.R Ananthmurthy says, “Dr. Binayak Sen represents me too”
- Agni Sridhar, and other speakers condemned the turn of events and called it an assault on democracy, pressing for the release of Dr. Binayak Sen.
- There was a good media presence!
Bangalore Campaigners welcomes binayak’s release
The Campaign for the Release of Dr Binayak Sen, Bangalore welcomes the decision of the Supreme Court to grant bail to Dr Sen. Dr. Sen’s incarceration had become a symbol of brutal state force, especially after a sustained national and international campaign for his release that involved a wide spectrum of human rights activists, health workers, doctors, trade union workers, grass root movements, NGOs, and other civil society members. Justice Markandeya Katju and Justice Deepak Verma after a very brief hearing on 25th May, 2009, granted bail on production of a personal bond after senior Advocate Shanti Bhushan had appeared before the Court on behalf of Dr. Sen. Dr Sen was arrested by the Chhattisgarh government on May 14th 2007 on charges of abetting Naxalites. Amongst the laws that he was detained under the draconian Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act, enacted by the Raman Sigh government in 2005. Dr Sen was one of the first of more than 43 people who have been detained under this Act.
Dr Sen’s arrest was a result of his tireless work as a member of the Peoples Union of Civil Liberties, Chhattisgarh in exposing the state government’s human rights abuses, especially violations by the state-sponsored vigilante force Salwa Judum. He was one of the few voices of dissent in state that clamps down on democratic rights in the name of fighting Naxalism. A recent example was the Chhattisgarh government’s demolition of the 17 year-old Vanvasi Chethana Ashram (VCA) in Dantewada run by Gandhian Himanshu Kumar. Though the VCA was contesting an eviction notice filed by the local administration alleging that it was occupying revenue forest land, on May 15th, 2009, 250-300 members of the District Force (DF), Special Police Officers (SPO), and Chhattisgarh police, razed the ashram to the ground. Himanshu Kumar was been instrumental in exposing the fake encounter of 12 adivasis from the Singara Salwa Judum relief camp on March 30th 2009. He was also been working towards the rehabilitation of some of the thousands displaced by the Salwa Judum. Journalists and students who were present during this demolition were intimidated and severely beaten up by the police. Two of those who were beaten were students from the Indian Institute of Science (IISC), Bangalore.
RIGHTS-INDIA: Activist Doctor’s Incarceration Flouts Democratic Norms
By Keya Acharya
IPS News
BANGALORE, May 8 (IPS) – Even while India goes to the polls in a lumbering show of democracy, human rights activist-doctor Binayak Sen remains in prison on unproven terrorism charges.
Sen’s bail plea was finally admitted by the apex Supreme Court (SC) on May 4, 10 days short of his second anniversary in jail in Raipur, capital of the central state of Chhatisgarh where Sen has practiced as a doctor to the rural poor for nearly three decades.
The SC has now asked the state government to report, posting a final hearing in another fortnight. The SC has also asked the Chhatisgarh government to ensure that the best medical treatment be made available to Sen.
Prison authorities have refused Sen, who was diagnosed with cardiac symptoms, permission to go to his alma mater, the reputed Christian Medical College, Vellore, south India, for cardiac surgery.
Sen has refused treatment in Raipur saying he perceived a threat to his life from a local hospital and that he had the legal right to a hospital of his choice.
“I think he’s in danger,” his wife Illina Sen, a professor of women’s studies in Wardha University, told IPS on the telephone from Raipur. “… Binayak is absolutely right that his life may be in danger in any facility controlled by the state in Chhatisgarh.”
The government accused Sen of passing on a set of letters from Narayan Sanyal, a guerrilla Naxal, or Maoist leader in Raipur jail, to a businessman with alleged close links to the radical left movement in Chhatisgarh. He is charged under the sweepingly-powerful Chhatisgarh State Public Security Act 2005, for “hatching a conspiracy” and abetting terrorism.
The Naxal movement, rampant in the southern forested belt of Chhattisgarh, is an armed and violent guerilla conflict born from long years of socio-economic inequality, alienation and displacement of tribals from their lands.
In its turn, the state authorities have aided and abetted an even more violent vigilante movement started in 2005 to quash the Maoists.
The movement, called Salwa Judum is charged by the independent, national People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), of which Sen is the state co-ordinator, of using rape, arson, intimidation and other brutalties to forcefully evict all tribal settlements in the district under the guise of their being Naxals.
The Continued Incarceration of Dr. Binayak Sen:What does it mean for Indian Democracy?
The Campaign for the Release of Binayak Sen invites you to a public seminar
It is almost two years since Dr. Binayak Sen was arrested by the Chhattisgarh government for alleged ‘crimes against the state’. Civil society has in the intervening period been deeply disturbed about this most unjust incarceration. All major cities across the globe and within India have seen protests, signature campaigns, discussions, and media awareness events all of which have attempted to raise awareness and make the state respond to the concerns of ordinary citizens. It is a telling comment on the nature of Indian democracy, that two years down the line we are still engaged in this struggle to free a man who should never have been imprisoned.
We see the struggle to free Dr. Binayak Sen as not just the struggle to secure the liberty of one man but rather a struggle, which in its many dimensions encompasses the very idea of India. It is a struggle which strives to protect and defend those who work to secure the Preambular promise of social and economic justice, it is a struggle against unjust and arbitrary state terror directed at those with the deepest Constitutional commitments and it is in every sense a struggle about the ethical content and meaning we wish to give to the Indian Constitution.
To understand and to reflect upon the many meanings of the struggle to free Dr. Binayak Sen and to renew our commitment to this highly significant struggle, we invite you to this public seminar.
Date: May 9th, 2009 (Saturday)
Time: 2 pm to 5 pm
Venue: SCM House, 29, 2nd Cross, Mission Road, Bangalore.
Speakers: Dr K. Balagopal,(Human Rights Forum, Hyderabad) B.V. Seetharam (Karavali Ale, Mangalore), and B.N. Jagadeesha (Alternative Law Forum, Bangalore)
Dr Sen’s heart condition: Letter to Chief Justice of India
Medicos demand immediate release
4 April 2009
Honorine Ward, MD
Associate Professor
Div of Geographic Medicine and Infectious Diseases
Tufts Medical Center
800 Washington Street
Boston, MA 02111
To : The Honourable Chief Justice of India,
We are extremely concerned about the health of Dr. Binayak Sen who has been imprisoned in Raipur since May 2007. Recently we learned that his health had worsened and that the doctor appointed by the court to examine him recommended that he be transferred to Vellore for an angiography and perhaps, if needed, an angioplasty or Coronary Artery Bypass Graft without further delay.
We believe that the court had ordered that Dr. Binayak receive treatment as per the doctor’s recommendations but there are still hurdles being created by the local administration. We urge you to use your good offices to see that this order is implemented immediately, as any delay may pose a risk to Dr. Binayak Sen’s life.
We also urge that Dr. Binayak be granted the bail that has been denied to him for almost two years now. Dr. Binayak has a blemishless record of public service both as a medical doctor amongst the poor and as a human rights crusader, and it is our humble opinion that a great injustice has already been done to him. We urge you to review his case.
Enclosure: Copy of Letter from Dr. Malhotra who examined Dr. Binayak Sen, March2009.
Citizen’s Statement Against Terrorism and Communal Violence
‘No Double Standards in the Fight Against Terrorism’
In recent months the country has witnessed a spate of terrorist attacks in different cities as well as organised communal violence against religious minorities in several states.
We the undersigned strongly condemn all these acts of violence that have resulted in loss of life and grievous injury to scores of innocent people. It is clear that whoever is responsible for such violence should be severely punished under Indian law and all measures be taken to protect the lives of ordinary citizens under threat from their activities.
We find it deeply disturbing however that the Indian government as well as concerned state governments have adopted double standards in dealing with the two equally deadly phenomenon of terrorist bombings and communal violence.
On one hand throughout the country Muslim youth are being targeted, without any or little evidence, as responsible for terrorist attacks. In our view there is a concerted attempt by the Indian police, sections of the media and certain political parties to portray all members of the Muslim community as ‘terrorists and extremists’ – to be arbitrarily arrested, tortured and killed in fake encounters.
Plain truths: Ajay T.G.’s films uncover a world hitherto concealed
Friday Review
Bangalore
The Hindu
THIRD EYE Ajay T.G.’s films reveal a socio-political insight into the state of Chhattisgarh
Ajay T.G.’s films are simple and telling. Screened recently by Vikalp Bengaluru, Alternative Law Forum and Pedestrian Pictures, five short films by the 35-year-old Chhattisgarh-based filmmaker drew crowds at the Centre for Film and Drama in Ban galore. Ajay T.G. and Dr. Binayak Sen have been arrested and charged under the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act (CSPSA). Several well-known filmmakers, film societies, writers, thinkers and journalists have expressed publicly, the demand for Ajay’s release and his right to make films by screening his films and holding discussions in some parts of the country.
“Anjam” was an informative film about the life and work of Dr. Binayak Sen at the Shaheed Hospital in Rajhara. As patients pour in, nurses, workers and doctors give personal accounts about Dr. Sen’s contribution and efforts. Newspaper-clippings and certificates float on the screen — going back to Dr. Sen’s role and phenomenal achievements as a student at the Christian Medical College, Vellore and Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi where he studied social medicine. Fifty six-year-old Binayak Sen has been in jail for more than a year for working for more than 30 years with the tribals of Chhattisgarh. On May 14, Ajay was arrested under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and the Chhattisgarh Special Security Act after publishing
“Hathaure Wala” (Man with the Iron Hammer) was short and revealing. Mid-long and life-size shorts of an ageing blacksmith working in the shadow of the Bhilai Steel Plant brought the audience in close proximity of his life and occupation.
Again, a short film, “Jeet” was a pre-rehearsed film by Jandarshan — a video-training project under the European Union-India Economic Cross Cultural Programme and Raipur-based Hindi daily “The Deshbandhu”. The student film captured a malaria-prevention drive in a village — very similar to a government movie on healthcare. Simple and straightforward for a target audience, “Jeet” portrayed the dichotomy of modern medical treatment and ancient myths.
Read the rest of this entry »
Bangaloreans lend support to human right activist
Times of India
BANGALORE: Students, writers and film-makers thronged the Centre for Film and Drama (CFD) on Monday to express support towards and watch films made by journalist Ajay T G, who has just been released by the Chhattisgarh police on bail after being arrested on charges of Maoist links.
The CFD screened four films shot on life in Bhilai and Jharkhand, reflecting the varied working conditions of people – from ironsmiths to hospital workers – and different societal expectations on family, marriage , gender progress and community life.
Ajay, who hails from Kerala, stayed in Bhilai for almost two decades. The photojournalist is also part of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), which is spearheading a campaign for human rights in Chhattisgarh. His PUCL colleague, Binayak Sen, is in a Chhattisgarh jail on charges of lending covert support to Maoists.
Writer and historian Ramachandra Guha, who spoke soon after the screening, said Chhattisgarh was caught in a cycle of violence between the police, Salwa Judum and Maoists. “Adivasis are most affected. Dantewada district, in particular, has been hit badly. The arrest of Sen and Ajay reflects the conditions prevailing in Chhattisgarh,” Guha said.
Ajay was picked up after his camera was allegedly found in the Maoists’ possession. He will address a meet in Delhi on his arrest, the reasons given and the circumstances under which he was jailed.
Resolutions on the convention against draconian laws
Resolution on serial bomb blasts in bangalore and ahmedabad
This convention against draconian laws organised by Asha Parivar, INSAF, NCDHR, FDI, SAHR APDP (J & K Manipur forward youth front, Civil Liberties Monitoring Committee Hyderabad and Reach out Condemns the serial bomb blasts at Bangalore and Ahmedabad.
In any civilised democratic society killing of innocents, women and children, whatever the demands and politics should be condemned. We condemn the barbaric acts of killing, maiming and sexual assaults in all forms of conflicts.
It should be noted that the serial bomb blasts will further vitiate the already communally charged atmosphere of Gujarat.
The country is yet to come over the Shock and Trauma of the Ghastly state sponsored communal carriage in Gujarat in year 2002, which is one of the blackest Spot in Post Independent India.
An attempt to deprive tribals of their constitutional rights: National Adivasi Alliance
Bangalore July 28: Decrying the conspiratory moves by forces with vested interests to thwart the rendering of constitutional benefits to the Adivasis across the country, the National Adivasi Alliance (NAA), a national level NGOs network has, in unison declared to intensify its efforts to lobby for the effective implementation of the Forests Rights Act. The resolution to this effect was taken at the three-day national workshop on “Adivasi World View and Adivasi Dialogue organized by NAA in association with Coorg Organisation for Rural Development (CORD) that concluded here on Sunday.
Briefing reporters here on the deliberations, NAA spokesperson, V S Roy David informed that the discussions which were actively participated by Adivasi representatives from eight states across the country including Jharkhand, Chattisgarh and Orissa, strongly felt that it was high time that the Governments and the other powers that may be, accorded serious weightage to the Adivasi ways of sustainability, ecology governance and justice system so as to enable progress in the true sense.
Binayaksen.net is one of many efforts by well wishers and supporters of Dr Binayak Sen to bring the injustice being done to him by the government of Chhattisgarh to the attention of people around the world. 
