Posts Tagged ‘justice
Taking forward Binayak Sen’s vision
International Solidarity to Dr Binayak Sen: A network of health workers worldwide to support the campaign for his release and to spearhead the issue of health and human rights.
We are a group of doctors, nurses, medical students, researchers and health workers from around the world, who share the global concern about the persecution of Dr Binayak Sen in India since 2007 and strongly support the concept of health care that promotes access to basic rights for all, equity and human rights for which he has been working all his life.
We strongly condemn the verdict of life imprisonment for ‘Sedition’ by a Sessions court in Chhattisgarh on 24 December 2010 despite the absence of any substantive evidence of wrong-doing.
We demand that
The Indian Government should immediately intervene to secure the release of Dr Binayak Sen and carry out a full public inquiry into the circumstances of his arrest and basis of his conviction.
Why the network
Binayak’s incarceration has made a wide range of health professionals in India as well as in different parts of the world realise that there has been gross injustice in spite of (or possibly because of) his functioning as a true professional in the health sector trying to reach the large section of the population in India who do not have access to modern health care. Many are convinced that the verdict of life imprisonment is motivated to silence any voice of dissent in India, in the state of Chhattisgarh in particular, where economic growth through national and multinational industries and mining are taking place at the cost of forceful displacement of indigenous people therein.
For Dr Sen’s release many doctors and students in different corners of the world have taken unprecedented efforts to offer their time and expertise by joining rallies with placards and signing petitions on one hand and offering professional support in free medical camps or similar efforts on the other. With heightened optimism we find so many health professionals around the globe sharing the concern for developing a healthcare founded on access to basic rights for all, equity and human rights.
Although many individuals and health organisations worldwide express their concern about Dr Sen’s incarceration, the efforts for his release are spontaneous and ill sustained and less forceful as not coordinated with other efforts elsewhere. This is the background for this proposal to form a network of health workers worldwide.
DANGEROUS MISSION – Prabhat Patnaik
The Telegraph
India’s growth rate cannot be made a national objective
While there will be general agreement that the judgment in Binayak Sen’s case represents a gross miscarriage of justice, most people will attribute it to the overzealousness of a lower judicial functionary, or, at the most, to the prevailing atmosphere in the state of Chhattisgarh. If the trial had been held elsewhere, they would argue, Sen would not have got the verdict he did. They are probably right, just as those who attribute the bringing of sedition charges against Arundhati Roy and Syed Ali Shah Geelani to the overzealousness of the Delhi police, and against Sudhir Dhawale to the overzealousness of the Maharashtra police, may well be right. But such overzealousness, instances of which are multiplying alarmingly, thrives within, and derives sustenance from, a certain ambience. This consists of the increasing tendency, under the current neo-liberal dispensation, to see any basic ideological opposition to the parameters of official policy as anti-national. The tendency, in short, is to criminalize ideological dissent. Of course, one must not cry wolf, but one must not ignore this tendency either. To do so will be fatal.
press release by petitioners on salwa judum
COURT SAYS PARAMILITARY APPROACH IS A PROBLEM NOT THE SOLUTION
ALL SIDES AGREE ON NEED FOR HIGH LEVEL MONITORING COMMITTEE – DIFFER ON ITS COMPOSITION
PRESS RELEASE ON HEARING OF SALWA JUDUM MATTER
7th January 2011
The Salwa Judum matter was heard in Court 9 of the Supreme Court today by Justice Sudershan Reddy and Justice SS Nijjar. This time all the main parties to the court were present – the last few times, the Solicitor General had asked for adjournments. The petitioners were represented by Senior Counsel, Mr. Ashok Desai (who is arguing the case pro-bono), the Centre by the Solicitor General, Mr. Gopal Subramanium and the State of Chhattisgarh by Mr. Harish Salve and Mr. Manish Singhvi.
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Shutting him up : Praful Bidwai
Hindustan Times, January 03, 2011
by Praful Bidwai
The Raipur sessions court judgment against civil liberties defender and health activist Binayak Sen has provoked outrage. His two-year long detention had drawn protests from the world over. The only substantial charge against Sen is that he passed on three letters from Narayan Sanyal, an undertrial, suspected — but not yet proved — to be a Maoist, to the Maoist leadership.
It takes several leaps of imagination, or nasty prejudice, to pronounce that carrying three pieces of paper containing trivialities such as congratulating the CPI (Maoist) on completing its party congress, amounts to sedition. Sedition means spreading disaffection against the state. It was introduced into the Indian Penal Code by the colonial State to repress the freedom struggle and muzzle the freedom of expression.
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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!
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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DANTEWADA PADYATRA, SATYAGRAH AND JAN SUNWAI
Announcement Letter
For the People’s Right to say No to displacement and Tribal Genocide And to demandthe right to live with justice and peace
Raipur / Dantewada
1 December 2009
Dear Friends,
You are aware that the tribals of Dantewada district in Chhattisgarh State are continuously facing large-scale displacement from their homes, fields and forests a well as a genocide in the last five years. The first aggressive onslaught was by the state sponsored vigilante group called the Salwa Judum. In the last five months, the people of this region are victims of a war called the Operation Green Hunt. Paramilitary troops along with the state armed police deployed in very large numbers by the Central and the state governments are carrying out operations against the tribals in the name of curbing Maoists and reclaiming territories from them.
In order to build public opinion and to support the tribal people in their demand to stop this displacement and genocide and to reclaim their right to live with justice and peace, several community based and people’s organisations, union and human rights groups from Chhattisgarh and outside are planning a series of activities in Dantewada in Chhattisgarh.
This letter is being sent to you so that you can block the dates between 14 December 2009 and 7 January 2010 and come to Dantewada in support of tribal people. The list of events and dates are as follows:
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Open Letter to the Maoists by CPJC
9 June 2009 Campaign for Peace and Justice in ChhattisgarhMr. Ganapathy
General Secretary
CPI Maoist
Dear Mr. Ganapathy,
We are very disturbed by the abduction of Nagesh Jhari (Panchayat Secretary) and Punem Honga (Former Sarpanch) on the night of 2nd of June, 2009 which happened between the villages of Basaguda and Avapalli in Bijapur District in the State of Chhattisgarh.
‘Naxalism Is Against The Natural Flow Of Life’
From Tehelka Cover Story “Binayak & The Tragedy Beyond”
Activist Himanshu Kumar could not be swayed by the State’s wrath. SHOMA CHAUDHURY speaks to this Gandhian
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| Unbent Himanshu kumar, daughters Alisha and Haripriya, wife Veena and father Prakash kumar |
You have two daughters. Does that not make you feel vulnerable?
My father was part of the freedom movement. My uncle was a senior colleague of Nehru’s. I knew men like the scientist Dayanidhi Patnaik, who came back with a PhD from America but gave up everything to join Vinobha Bhave’s Bhoomidan movement. I didn’t even notice when their values were stamped on me. From them, I came to believe that the material world is immaterial. Why should I compromise for my girls? What would I achieve? Two more girls — among lakhs of others — would be brought up to lead a cloistered life. Veena could have pulled me back, but she has never done that. She herself was terrified of wearing bangles and synthetic clothes and being trapped in a marriage that would shut her behind closed doors. She was a social worker before she married me.
What is at the heart of the State’s neglect and abuse of tribals?
I don’t think either the State or the police see them as human. How many officials have even bothered to learn their language? One day a CRPF officer was complaining to me about them. He said, “Oh, these ULFA-Nagas-adivasis — whatever they’re called…” That’s how faceless they were to him. There is such an arrogance in the way the State approaches them. They will not consult them, not communicate with them.
| We are not picking up the gun but are asking for justice within the system. Why does that rouse the State’s ire? |
P Chidambaram has said he will militarily destroy the Naxals, then bring development in the region.
He can do that. He can kill thousands of his own countrymen attempting that. He has greater might, he is a superior race. And as one Naxal leader said in an interview to TEHELKA, “We do not control all areas. Why don’t they bring development to places we don’t control?”
10 Questions for Manmohan Singh – By Dilip D’Souza
Dilip D’Souza
Ten questions for Manmohan Singh, as he savours an election victory and gets ready to embark on a second term in office.
Note that this is by no means an exhaustive list. There are plenty of other questions to ask, plenty of other concerns to pay attention to. In particular, there are foreign concerns: like the goings-on in Sri Lanka and Pakistan, to pick two. Those are important, no doubt.
But I tend to believe in the maxim that we must clean our own house first, before looking outward. And I believe too that there are questions to be asked about justice in particular. So with no further ado, ten questions. About justice.
***
Sir, perhaps you can’t actually do something about the questions I ask below, given both the compulsions of politics and what are state subjects and what aren’t. Yet as Prime Minister, and one who has just won the clearest mandate Indians have given in two decades, your voice carries an authority that cannot easily be ignored. Thus:
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. 
