Posts Tagged ‘Dec2010
Full text: The Binayak Sen Judgement (English Translation)
(Given below is the full text of the judgement of Raipur Sessions Court sentencing Dr Binayak Sen for life. It is a translation from the Hindi. The translation has been done by the Free Binayak Sen campaign. You can download here (.pdf) the Hindi original. also read the Critique of the Judgement )
Protest March and Candlelight Vigil in Thiruvavanthapuram
Artists, Writers, Film makers, Human rights activists and social activists joined about a 100 people from different walks of life in a protest march and candlelight vigil in front of the secretariat of Thiruvananthapuram in solidarity with Dr. Binayak Sen who was recently convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment by a sessions court in Chhattisgarh. Writer Paul Zacharia said that Binayak Sen was the victim of a violent state which is crushing the people’s movements in the state and that we need to understand the politics of this violence. . In a symbolic protest, Sreemith and Ajith, two film makers chained themselves holding placards. T.T. Sreekumar, social scientist, TN Joy, representative of political prisoners during emergency, Gowreedasan Nair, journalist, Sajimon (Dalit Human rights movement), Seeta Dasan (SEWA Union), Sajeed (Solidarity Youth Movement), Reny Ayline, (NCHRO) and Dasan (Yuvajanavedi) too spoke on the occasionA protest march was taken out with candles through the city square. Beena paul Venugopal, Artistic Director, IFFK and Sajitha Madathil Deputy Director, IFFK , Artist Sajitha, Manglin Peter of Kerala Swathanthra Matsyathozhilali Federation CS Venkiteswaran, film critic and Elizabeth of Sahaja, Kottayam also participated.
The case of the good doctor
By systematically persecuting Dr Binayak Sen, a tireless champion of human rights and the rights of adivasis and workers, the Indian state is sending a strong message to civil society about the price of not toeing the line.
Raja bola raat hai,
mantri bola raat hai,
court bola raat hai,
ye subah subah ki baat hai!
(The king said it was night. The minister said it was night. The court said it was night. It was early morning!)
On 24 Dec 2010, the District Court in Raipur in Chhattisgarh state of central India sentenced Dr Binayak Sen to life imprisonment. Given the flimsy nature of the evidence, to most it came as a shock; to the Indian state seeking to silence dissenting human rights activists and social workers, it was shot in the arm.
Targeting Dr Binayak Sen, a well-known civil rights and public health activist, has wide implications for democracy and civil rights in India. Dr. Sen is the National Vice President of the Peoples’ Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), one of the most respected civil liberties organizations in India founded by late Jaya Prakash Narayan during the 1975-77 internal Emergency, the worst era in the history of post-independence India. Dr Sen’s work in the area of public health is well known; in fact, he was a part of the group which set up the Mitanin rural health care system for Chhattisgarh twenty years ago when the state was still under formation. He is a man for whose bail, twenty two Nobel laureates had appealed. For whose release, the British House of Commons had issued a motion.
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Report on Meeting at TISS on Binayak conviction
Yesterday, the students of TISS called a meeting to discuss the conviction of Binayak Sen on their campus in the evening, which was widely publicised by the putting up of posters all over the campus. my talk was followed by a long discussion in which Bela Bhatia and Nandini Manjrekar also participated.
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Protest Demonstration by citizens of Odisha
Ms.Pramodini Pradhan, PUCL that there will be a Protest Demonstration by citizens of Odisha at 11 AM on 30th December at Master Canteen against the unfair trial of Dr.Binayak Sen.
INVITE PRESS CONF Free Binayak sen: 30th Dec, 3 pm, Chennai PRESS CLUB, Chepauk
Madhumita Writes
Dear all,
The Chennai Police Commissioner has denied us permission to hold the demostration on 31st Dec infront of Memorial Hall citing specious reason of holding demonstration against a judicial decision as “unlawful” and even seeking permission for such a demonstration to be “unlawful”.
Please join us for a press conference, see details below:
Venue: Chennai Press Club, Chepauk (near govt guest house)
Date: 30th December 2010; Time: 3pm (we will need to start on time)
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Video: Scrap the law on Sedition
Sedition decision ‘misuse’ of laws: Amartya Sen
The Telegraph
Amartya Sen
I am very upset about the court decision in Chhattisgarh about Binayak Sen. It is a huge perversion of our system of justice, and particularly of the laws concerning sedition. It’s not at all clear, to start with, that the thing he has been exactly accused of — of passing letters — has been really proved beyond doubt.
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Statement by Academics on Dr. Binayak Sen judgment
We are deeply shocked by the judgment of a Chhattisgarh court holding the human rights activist Dr. Binayak Sen to be guilty of sedition, and sentencing him to life imprisonment.
Dr. Binayak Sen never resorted to violence against any other person, never incited anyone else to resort to violence, never entered into any conspiracy against the Constitutional order of the country, and never entered into regular service of any organisation that was involved in any such conspiracy, for furthering its cause. On the contrary, as a doctor he served the people with devotion and helped to save many lives; as a human rights activist he stood up in defence of the rights of the downtrodden. And yet he has been handed down this sentence whose savagery is unbelievable.
Such an action on the part of the State in the name of preserving the Constitutional order will only serve to undermine that Constitutional order itself. It will inevitably raise the thought in the minds of many that an order within which the activities of a person like Dr. Sen can be held to be “seditious” is not worth defending.
Such an impression must be avoided. The damage done by this shocking verdict to our Constitutional order must be undone. The higher judiciary of the country must hear his appeal expeditiously, must grant him immediate bail till the end of the appeal process, and must judge his case with enlightened reason.
1. Professor Prabhat Patnaik, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
2. Professor Noam Chomsky, MIT, Cambridge, Mass, USA
3. Professor Amiya Kumar Bagchi, Institute of Development Studies, Kolkata
4. Dr. Ashok Mitra, former Finance Minister, Govt of West Bengal
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An Open Letter to the Honourable President of India, Smt Pratibha Patil and , Prime Minister on the outrageous conviction of Dr. Binayak Sen
Women against Sexual violence and State Repression (WSS)
Delhi dt. 25th December 2010
Women against Sexual Violence and State repression (WSS) is outraged at the charges framed and the conviction by the Additional Sessions Court, Raipur of Dr. Binayak Sen on Dcember 24 2010. As citizens of the Democratic Republic of India we are also deeply saddened at this colossal betrayal of public trust by those who owe allegiance to the practice of law, and who have been entrusted with upholding the principles of fair play and truth that we believe the Constitution of this country has enshrined.
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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. 
