---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Shiva Shankar <sshankar@cmi.ac.in>
Date: Sat, Dec 25, 2010 at 10:18 PM
Subject: Dr. Biayak Sens conviction highlights the tasks for 2011
clearer for the visit of the UN SR on HRD to India in January 2011.
(fwd)
To:
'... "All kinds of scamsters and mass murderers are all over the power
establishment and a man who lived and worked for the poor all this
life, he is charged with sedition. What utter nonsense is this," said
a JNU student. ...'
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Henri Tiphagne <henri@pwtn.org>
Date: Fri, Dec 24, 2010 at 7:14 PM
Subject: [Arkitect India] Dr. Biayak Sens conviction
Dear Colleagues,
I have been wanting to wait for this judgement before mentioning
anything about Xmas this Year. It is so unfortunate to hear the
judgement of the Court on Dr. Binayak Sen. Let us only resolve as we
get ready to celebrate the spirit of Xmas that our struggle for
freedom and rights to human rights defenders have to continue.
Let me wish all of you a meaningful Christmas and challenging New Year 2011.
Let the visit of Ms. Margaret Sekagya , the United Nations Special
Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders in January 2011 form 10th to the
20th be an occasion where thousands of HRds all over the country will
place sufficient pressure on the Government to ensure that Human
Rights Defenders are protected.
[?ui=2&ik=be76deb0f0&view=att&th=12d1c04fde8a4d60&attid=0.1&disp=emb&zw]
A Chhattisgarh court condemns the good doctor to life imprisonment.
Let this brazen injustice not go unchallenged, Amit Sengupta Delhi
The horrifying verdict of life imprisonment for Dr Binayak Sen,
accused of unimaginable crimes such as treason and sedition, has come
as a real new low in the dirty quagmire of a litany of injustices in
this fragmented and corrupt, largest democracy in the world. It will
immediately polarise the civil society with a collective howl of
protest against this brazen injustice and the recharged longing for
justice so brazenly denied to someone called 'the good doctor' all
over the world. The judgement will definitely sharpen the solidarity
of all sensitive, secular and democratic opinion in India and across
the world, and prove the brazenly undemocratic and fascistic character
of the BJP regime in Chhattisgarh, who went about concocting false
charges against Dr Sen, despite almost no tangible evidence.
Raipur District and Sessions Court judge BP Varma on Friday found Dr
Sen guilty on a variety of counts and also under the Chhattisgarh
Special Public Security Act.
According to the latest dispatch from PUCL General Secretary Kavita
Srivastava from Raipur: "By now you all must have got to know about
the conviction of Dr Binayak Sen u/s of 120(B), 124(A) of the IPC and
1,2,3,5, Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act and Sec 39 (2) of
the UAPA (2004 amended). Binayak was taken away immediately into
custody. He was extremely equanimous. It was an emotional moment for
Dr Sen's daughters and brother Dipanker Sen. His wife, Professor Ilina
Sen, is upset but thinking ahead...
Said Prof Sen, "It is a sad day for me. It is a sadder day for Indian
democracy. They had no evidence, nothing to prove the charges. They
even termed me an ISI agent (ISI turned out to be the Indian Social
Institute in Delhi). This is injustice and it's for all to see."
"This judgement is really unacceptable and unconstitutional. After
all, two of the laws under which he has been convicted are themselves
being questioned as far as their constitutional validity is
concerned... We need to really build a campaign again. There was
really no evidence," said Kavita Srivastava.
Dr Binayak Sen will appeal in the High Court at the earliest, though
the court, in an uncanny timing of the judgement, will go on vacation
from December 25. The other two co-accused, Piyush Guha and Narayan
Sanyal, have also been convicted. Some extra sections have been
applied to Sanyal, accused of being a Maoist leader.
Most human rights activists, academics and even journalists who have
covered the long imprisonment of Dr Sen in the past have reacted with
utmost horror at the sheer injustice of the judgement, despite such
widespread public opinion and factual evidence against the false cases
against Dr Sen by the BJP-led regime in Chhattisgarh. "This is
bizarre, shocking, inhuman, unjust, absolutely incomprehensible. How
can the judge do that? How can they so publicly demonstrate such
irrational behaviour? Such brazen injustice?" - this is the kind of
remorse and anger flowing out of all over the country after the
shocking judgment.
From university campuses to newspaper offices to middle-class homes
and power corridors across India, this is a judgement which is seen to
be clearly destroying the last edifices of the public perception of
the Indian justice system, the faith in the judiciary and the idea of
justice, and the faith which the civil society has on the edifices of
democracy. "All kinds of scamsters and mass murderers are all over the
power establishment and a man who lived and worked for the poor all
this life, he is charged with sedition. What utter nonsense is this,"
said a JNU student.
Said Thomas Kocherry, leader of the National Fishermen's Federation,
in a bulk email from Cochin: "Let us send out protest letters to the
Chhattisgarh court and the state government and send out this to the
whole world. It is unjust. An innocent man is arrested again. Is there
any justice in this country? We have to keep protesting till Binayak
Sen gets justice. We cannot keep quiet. We have to fight for the
rights of the people. We cannot organise the people. This is the
character of the BJP government in Chhattisgarh. Another Emergency is
in the making in MP."
Dr Sen is currently a professor at the prestigious Christian Medical
College (CMC), Vellore, of which he is an eminent alumni. The entire
alumni of CMC had petitioned for his release during his imprisonment.
At least 22 noble prize winners from all over the world had sought his
immediate freedom and lauded the exemplary work Dr Sen had in the
medical sciences, in popularising it among the poorest of the poor,
and in providing the best of treatment to the impoverished adivasis in
the Hindi heartland. Distinguished artists, academics, filmmakers and
writers like Sudhir Mishra, Noam Chomsky, Romila Thapar, Arundhati
Roy, Sumit Sarkar, Tanika Sarkar, Dilip Simeon, Praful Bidwai, Sanjay
Kak, among others, had campaigned and petitioned for his freedom. Even
Sri Sri Ravishankar had visited him at Raipur jail and sought his
release, even as singers like Rabbi and Indian Ocean, and students
from all across India and the world, organised protests, campaigns and
concerts demanding freedom for the good doctor. In fact, the website
www.binayaksen.net became an international forum for a vigorous and
relentless campaign.
"This campaign will become national and global soon. This is certain.
We start with a list of all those who have not been given life
imprisonment for sedition and treason, including scamsters, criminals
and mass murderers who call the shots in the Indian power
establishment. We all know their names. Their names will be put up on
the website. And the mass protests all over the world against the
brazen injustice will start from now, right now, at this moment," said
Satya Sivaraman, journalist, filmmaker and activist, who was one of
the key catalysts in the campaign last time. This, when news is still
trickling in, and a global and national web and sms campaign is
already underway. Indeed, TV channels are already moving in with the
news.
'Free Dr Binayak Sen.' 'Freedom for the good doctor.' Surely, the old
slogans are coming back
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