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Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

बिनायक सेन को उम्रकैद- लोकतंत्र घायल !
 मध्यभारत के जनजातीय इलाकों में तीन दशक से भी ज्यादा समय तक निस्वार्थ जनसेवा में जीवन बिताने वाले डाक्टर बिनायक सेन को देशद्रोह के आरोप में आजीवन कैद की सज़ा सुनाये जाने पर नागरिक संगठन हतप्रभ और आतंकित हैं। रायपुर के सेशन कोर्ट के जज ने बिनायक सेन के साथ पीयूष गुहा और नारायण सान्याल को भी देशद्रोह के आरोप में उम्रकैद की सज़ा सुनायी है। 

देशभर में कोर्ट के इस फैसले के विरोध में प्रदर्शन हो रहे हैं। देश में सक्रिय जीवंत नागरिक संगठनों के सदस्य, जन-आंदोलनों से जुड़े कार्यकर्ता, बुद्धिजीवी, नौकरीपेशा लोग, सामाजिक कार्यकर्ता, छात्र और जनसेवा-भावी लोग कोर्ट के फैसले के विरोध में सचमुच सड़कों पर उतर आये हैं। तकरीबन सभी राष्ट्रीय दैनिकों और अंतर्राष्ट्रीय मानवाधिकार संगठनों ने कोर्ट के इस फैसले की निन्दा की है और कई ने अदालत के फैसले को न्यायभावना के विपरीत बताया है। सोशल नेटवर्किंग के साइटस्, ब्लॉगजगत, ट्वीटर और विश्वव्यापी वेब पर मौजूद आभासी लोकवृत मसलन पीटिशन ऑनलाइन या फिर यूट्यूब पर फैसले के खिलाफ आक्रोश की विविध ध्वनियां सुनाई दे रही हैं।

इन्कूलिसिव मीडिया फॉर चेंज की टीम ने देश के कुछ नामी नागरिक संगठनों द्वारा बिनायक सेन को सुनायी गई सज़ा के संबंध में जारी बयानों का संकलन तैयार किया है(देखें नीचे)। इस मसले पर विस्तृत जानकारी के लिए बयानों के नीचे दी गई लिंक पर जाया जा सकता है।

प्रेस रिलीज: 
  
एमनेस्टी इंटरनेशनल

For more information please call Amnesty International’s press office in London, UK, on +44 20 7413 5566 or email: press@amnesty.org International Secretariat, Amnesty International, 1 Easton St., London WC1X 0DW, UK

Press release:

The life sentence handed down against Dr Binayak Sen by a court in the India state of Chhattisgarh violates international fair trial standards and is likely to enflame tensions in the conflict-affected area, Amnesty International said today.

“Life in prison is an unusually harsh sentence for anyone, much less for an internationally recognized human rights defender who has never been charged with any act of violence,” said Sam Zarifi, Amnesty International’s Asia-Pacific director. “State and federal authorities in India should immediately drop these politically motivated charges against Dr Sen and release him.”

Dr Binayak Sen was convicted of sedition and conspiracy under the Chhattisgarh Special Public Safety Act, 2005, and the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, 2004. He was immediately taken into custody after the announcement of the sentence, having been out on bail since May 2009.

“Dr Sen, who is considered a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International, was convicted under laws that are impermissibly vague and fall well short of international standards for criminal prosecution,” Sam Zarifi said. “Instead of persecuting Dr Sen, authorities in Chhattisgarh should be acting to protect the people of the region from the abuses committed by the Maoists, as well as state security forces and militias.”

“This sentence will seriously intimidate other human rights defenders who would provide a peaceful outlet for the people’s grievances, especially for the indigenous Adivasi population,” Sam Zarifi said.

India’s central government has acknowledged that the intensifying armed conflict with the Maoists in central India is a reflection of serious inequities and a history of human rights violations in the area.  Amnesty International believes that the charges against Dr Sen are baseless and politically motivated.

Dr Binyak Sen is a pioneer of health care to marginalized and indigenous communities in Chhattisgarh, where the state police and armed Maoists have been engaged in clashes over the last seven years.  He has reported on unlawful killings of Adivasis (Indigenous People) by the police and by Salwa Judum, a private militia widely held to be sponsored by the state authorities to fight the armed Maoists.

Dr Binyak Sen was first detained without proper charges for seven months, denied bail, and kept in solitary confinement for three weeks. He spent two years in jail before his release on bail in May 2009. Many of the charges against him stem from laws that contravene international standards. Repeated delays in the conduct of his trial have cast doubts about its fairness.

Amnesty International has repeatedly called on the Indian authorities to immediately drop all the charges against Dr Binyak Sen.

Public Document
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एमकेएसस (मजदूर किसान शक्ति संगठन)

For more information please call RTI Manch, S-9, FF-II, Rajshree Apartment, Jyoti Nagar Extension, Jaipur-302005, RTI Help Line-9252489519, Tel : 0141-2740019

We are deeply disturbed by the judgement of the Raipur Additional District and Sessions Court convicting Dr. Binayak Sen on charges of sedition, treason and conspiracy against the state and sentencing him to life imprisonment. We believe that the trial of the eminent and committed human rights activist was not fair and that this is a miscarriage of justice. We condemn the charges, the prosecution and the conviction as a blow to democracy. We hope that the higher judiciary will grant him immediate release and ensure that no further harm is done to him and the human rights movement. We will support all efforts to obtain justice for Dr. Binayak Sen.
Aruna Roy, Nikhil Dey, Shankar Singh and the MKSS collective

पीयूसीएल (पीपल्स यूनियन फॉर सिविल लिवर्टीज्)

For more information please call Kavita Shrivastava +91 9351562965
Delhi/ Raipur,
24th December, 2010

The People’s Union for Civil Liberties is deeply disappointed at the miscarriage of justice reflected in the judgement of Raipur Additional District and Sessions Judge B. P Verma sentencing our National Vice President Dr. Binayak Sen to life imprisonment under charges of sedition 124 (A) of the IPC read with conspiracy (120-B IPC) along with convicting him concurrently u/s 8-(1), (2), (3) and (5) of the Chhattisgarh Vishesh Jan Suraksha Adhiniyam,2005 (Chhattisgarh Special Public Safety Act, 2005) and u/sec 39 (2) of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, 2004 (amended). It is a sad day for the PUCL and all human rights defenders in the country and a black day for the Indian Judiciary

Dr. Binayak Sen was charged with being a courier of letters from co-accused Narayan Sanyal to Piyush Guha. All through the trial not a single Jail authority appearing as prosecution witness confirmed this. In fact, there was no substantive evidence to confirm any of the allegations of the prosecution.

The PUCL holds that Dr Binayak Sen is a victim of the vendetta of the Chhattisgarh government for his bold and principled opposition to state sponsored vigilante operation Salwa Judum, which has been held unacceptable even by the Supreme Court. His conviction is one more example of the state succeeding in securing the conviction of an innocent person on the basis of false evidence. It is an occasion for the nation to demand drastic reform of the criminal justice system to ensure that it is not manipulated by the state to persecute, prosecute and victimize innocent persons.

The PUCL will continue to work towards Dr. Binayak Sen release and take all legal measures in this regard. It will also work towards building public opinion against the ongoing persecution of activists and Human Rights Defenders in the country.

Prabhakar Sinha (President), Pushkar Raj (General Secretary), Mahipal Singh (National Secretary), Kavita Srivastava (National Secretary)

पीयूडीआर (पीपल्स यूनियन फॉर डेमोक्रेटिक राइटस्) 

For more information please call Contact: Harish Dhawan: 9811667776 Email: pudrdelhi@yahoo.com
Press Statement

People’s Union for Democratic Rights, Delhi (PUDR) strongly protests against the conviction order of the Sessions Court at Raipur sentencing Dr. Binayak Sen, Piyush Guha and Narayan Sanyal to life imprisonment.

The reason for the institution of this case by the Chhattisgarh police was to prevent the growing opposition to the government policy of creating and arming of the Salwa Judum, an opposition that the PUCL, Chhattisgarh was leading. The PUCL and its General Secretary, Dr. Binayak Sen organised fact-finding missions and brought to light the untold misery being caused to the tribal people by the Salwa Judum mobs through hitherto unrecorded murders, rapes, arson and looting that led to the total evacuation of around 700 villages. Such efforts were not to be taken kindly by the police and civil administration and Dr. Sen had been threatened that he would be booked. Being the conscientious civil liberties activist, Dr. Sen continued in his work unmindful of the threats. That such were the designs of the Chhattisgarh government is made amply clear through the demolition of the Vanvasi Chetna Ashram and hounding of the noted Gandhian, Himanshu Kumar, till he was forced to flee.

The charge made out by the prosecution against Dr. Binayak Sen was that he was responsible for passing letters from Narayan Sanyal lodged in jail to Piyush Guha. During the trial, not a single witness testified to this. The charge was wholly demolished. Hence a number of additional flimsy charges were made against Dr. Sen. These include receiving a letter from Narayan Sanyal duly stamped by jail authorities, visiting Narayan Sanyal in jail to assist in his medical treatment, receiving a letter from another jail inmate regarding appalling conditions of jail inmates, helping to organise a fact-finding in Nagpur into the attacks on dalits at Khairlanji, among others. While each of these is a legitimate activity taken up by every civil rights organisation in the country, a sinister colour was sought to be given to it by the prosecution. All of these charges were found utterly baseless during the course of the trial.

Lies were resorted to at various levels. First of these concerns the arrest. Piyush Guha’s arrest was shown many days after he had been arrested. His return ticket to Kolkata and the reservation chart with the Indian Railways shows this amply. Thus he was already in police custody and had been tortured for many days before he was shown to have been arrested with the letters ostensibly given to him by Dr. Sen. Lies were submitted on record by the prosecution to the highest courts in the case of Dr. Sen’s arrest. Dr. Sen was in Kolkata when the Chhattisgarh police started making insinuating statements against him. Dr. Sen publicly criticized these statements and proceeded to Bilaspur and went straight to the police to confront them. He was told that he was under arrest at the police station. Police has however stated that Dr. Sen was nabbed by the police, implying that he was evading arrest. The courts consistently failed to see through this web of lies and Dr. Sen was denied bail for two whole years.

Most recently, during the final stages of the trial, a letter was brought before the court and was attributed to having been seized from Dr. Sen’s house. All articles seized from his house were signed by him at the time of the seizure. This one did not bear his signature, but the judge allowed it to be taken on record. During the final arguments, he was sought to be linked through emails to the Pakistan ISI by the prosecution, a charge that turned out to be comic since the ISI turned out to be the Indian Social Institute at Delhi. The judge did not deem it fit to even chastise such glaring mal-prosecution.

Far from being rejected by the court and the prosecution reprimanded, the huge number of such blatantly false accusations have finally paid off for the prosecution. This has been made possible by charges being made under the UAPA, the CSPSA and the provision relating to sedition in the IPC. All of these laws define politics as a crime. And in doing so, these laws enable the state to choose and target the politics, the organisation and the individual and to hit them with legislated violence. It is for this reason that human rights organisations across the globe have opposed such laws.

In another case Asit Sengupta, editor and publisher of a communist magazine, A World to Win was convicted for his work and sentenced to eight years imprisonment. His conviction is also based on charges under the CSPSA and UAPA, based solely on possession of literature of banned organisation. This conviction is a direct attack on the freedom of the press and the freedom to inform our self and read literature.

PUDR strongly protests against the verdict of the Sessions Court at Raipur. We demand that the judiciary take suo moto notice of this grave miscarriage of justice and take measures to undo the misdeed that this verdict involves. PUDR also demands that governments stop taking recourse the use of sedition and special laws for silencing dissent and criminalising human rights activity to cover up their own crimes.

PUDR calls upon all people who stand by democracy, rule of law and political freedoms to join the protest at Jantar Mantar on Monday, 27 December 2010 at 2 p.m.

Harish Dhawan, Paramjeet Singh (Secretaries), Contact: Harish Dhawan: 9811667776 Email: pudrdelhi@yahoo.com

एनएपीएम (नेशनल अलायंस ऑव पीपल्स मूवमेंटस्)

For more information please call Contact: National Alliance of People’s Movements; Room No 29-30, 1st floor, ‘A’ Wing, Haji Habib Bldg, Naigaon Cross Road, Dadar (E), Mumbai – 400 014; Ph: 022-24150529, E-mail: napmindia@gmail.com, Delhi Contact : 09818905316

Press Statement:

We are shocked and pained to hear that the District and Sessions court in Raipur has charged Dr. Binayak Sen of sedition, treason and conspiracy against the State leading to life imprisonment. This is no judgement but rather a viciously motivated and unjust punishment to a non-violent human rights activist who has been challenging injustice and violation of people’s rights. It is obviously politically motivated and aimed at threatening any and every struggle by adivasis and other vulnerable sections of our society. We all condemn it as unjustifiable. It’s a cruel blow to the democratic fabric of our country wherein the corporatised State and its position against the natural resource based communities is reflected in an illegitimate way to suppress the challenge.

Knowing Dr. Binayak Sen, the pediatrician, as a patriot with commitment to protection of human rights and known to be a gentle human being, there is no doubt that it is the same fraudulent ‘proof ‘ and process that has led to such a condemnable contempt of people’s struggles in this country. Having experienced the dealings of the BJP Government in Chhattisgarh, whether through Salwa Judum or through the black act in the name of security of the State, it is obvious that having failed in assuring the tribal society of and ensuring peace, the Raman Singh Government and its agencies have resorted to unconstitutional means to suppress Dr. Sen and others who represent patriotism and not sedition.

We, the peaceful people’s movements, should take a clue and get ready to lodge a stronger struggle nationwide against the violence by any pillar of the State. If not today, it would be never.

Medha Patkar, Madhuresh Kumar, Arundhati Dhuru, Simprit Singh, Suhas Kolhekar, Suniti S.R.

एनसीपीआरआई (नेशनल काऊंसिल फॉर पीपल्स राइट टू इन्फॉरमेशन)

For more information please call Contact:NCPRI Working Committee ncpri.india@gmail.com, 9818838588
PRESS RELEASE: The Unfair Conviction of Dr Binayak Sen

December 26, 2010: The National Campaign for People’s Right to Information (NCPRI) is deeply disturbed by the judgement of the Raipur Additional District and Sessions Court convicting Dr Binayak Sen on charges of sedition, treason and conspiracy against the state and sentencing him to life imprisonment. We believe that the trial of the eminent and committed human rights activist was not fair and that this is a miscarriage of justice. The case is representative of the ongoing persecution of various human rights activists as well as ordinary people in conflict areas through the arbitrary use of special laws.

We condemn the charges, the prosecution and the conviction as fundamentally undermining democracy. We hope that the higher judiciary will grant him immediate release and ensure that no further harm is done to him and the human rights movement. For the preservation of democracy, it is also essential that the higher judiciary examines the nature of the laws as well as the investigating agencies for their actions that lead to the persecution of human rights activists like Dr Binayak Sen, and ensures that action is taken against the miscarriage of justice. We will support all efforts to obtain justice for Dr Binayak Sen and all others who face repression for critiquing the state.

In solidarity: Anjali Bhardwaj, Aruna Roy, Harsh Mander, Jagdeep Chhokar, Nikhil Dey, Sandeep Pandey, Trilochan Sastry

विमेन अगेंस्ट सेक्सुअल वायलेंस एंड स्टेट रिप्रेशन (WASS) 

For more information please call Contact: Contact at – againstsexualviolence@gmail.com
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.

Dr Binayak Sen is a pediatrician by training and has made significant contributions in the public health field in Chhattisgarh. Over the past three decades he had gradually extended his sphere of work into what the governments, international agencies and public health professionals refer to as “social determinants of health”. As a civil liberties activist, Dr Sen went beyond providing curative services in some of the remotest parts of Chhattisgarh. His work demonstrates how medicine and public health practitioners can contribute to the broader struggles for basic rights to food, health and education, as well as for democratic rights, in our highly unequal society. That a very wide section of people – from industrial workers, lawyers, academicians, film-makers, social and political activists, poets, artists, doctors, to students have rallied for him and the cause he represented cannot be brushed aside. It is time for the Indian public to question ourselves at the methods used by the State of Chhattisgarh not only in the events leading up to Dr. Sen’s arrest in 2007 and his incarceration for two whole years, but also at the conviction of sedition under Section 124(a) despite the lack of evidence. While the judiciary and the legal system of India can be complicit in this witch-hunt of Dr. Sen by the Chhattisgarh State to buttress the corporate-backed agenda of grabbing the land and natural resources of Chhattisgarh, it does not follow that the Indian public will be silent spectators to such erosion of democracy.

In this past decade Indian laws around the industries, environment and tribal land and resource rights been flouted or violated with impunity. Further, the government has also come down heavily on the resistance by the affected peoples to such appropriations of natural resources. In our hurry to attain double digit GDP, we need to pause and ask ourselves whether it is to be at the cost of the rights of 80% of our population, whose development it is, why the poorest of our poor need to pay the unequal cost of a globalizing India and why development cannot be sustainable and just. Dr. Sen’s arrest, incarceration, trial and conviction are an indication of the way the government is willing to trample on Indian democracy. If any activity and any protest by civil rights and human rights activists against unjust or unlawful acts of the government are to be met with such persecution and malignance, the fabric of this nation will not stand the strain.

We reiterate that Dr. Sen has been falsely implicated, falsely charged and unjustly convicted due to his public protests against the Salwa Judum, against the extreme and increasing deprivations that the tribals of Central India are facing, against the socio-economic and political erosion of tribal rights and against the atrocities that the Indian state is inflicting upon its poor. It is ridiculously easy to label just about anybody as a ‘Naxalite’ or a ‘Naxalite-sympathiser’ as a red herring in cases when the State has been colluding, through its administrative-police-judicial nexus, with multi-national companies, public sector units and -scale industrialists in its encroachments of tribal lands and forest resources.

Women against Sexual Violence and State Repression (WSS) demands that the Union government and all State governments wake up to the enormous injustices being perpetrated upon the Indian people, especially the Indian poor, as is symbolised by this travesty of justice in the case if Dr. Sen. We unequivocally condemn this judgment of the Raipur Sessions Court and urge you to intervene in this repugnant attack on our democratic and civil rights.

About WSS: WSS began in November 2009 as a non-funded grassroots effort to end the violence being perpetrated upon our bodies and on our societies. It is a nationwide network representing women from diverse political and social movements that include women’s organizations, mass organizations, civil liberty organizations, student and youth organizations, mass movements and individual women. We unequivocally condemn sexual violence and sexual assault inflicted on women.

उपयोगी लिंक्स्:

Free Binayak Sen Campaign site
http://www.binayaksen.net/

Ramchandra Guha in Hindustan Times
http://www.im4change.org/rural-news-update/not-to-question
-why-by-ramachandra-guha-5089.html

Conversation with Illina Sen
http://www.binayaksen.net/2008/05/bread-or-freedom-can-we-
have-both%E2%80%9D-join-us-in-a-conversation-with-dr-ilina
-sen/

Satya Sagar on Sen ‘mis-trial’
http://www.binayaksen.net/2008/12/the-mis-trial-of-dr-bina
yak-sen/

Court overlooks weak links in Binayak Sen case by Manoj Mitta & Supriya Sharma, The Times of India, 27 december, 2010,
http://www.im4change.org/rural-news-update/court-overlooks
-weak-links-in-binayak-sen-case-by-manoj-mitta-supriya-sha
rma-5102.html

Jyoti Punwani on Sen trial
http://www.binayaksen.net/2010/12/jyoti-punwani-on-the-tri
al-of-binayak-sen/

CPI calls it a travesty of justice
http://www.im4change.org/rural-news-update/its-a-travesty-
of-truth-and-justice-says-cpi-5074.html

Rights groups seek justice, The Hindu, 26 December, 2010,

http://www.hindu.com/2010/12/26/stories/2010122657381100.htm

Conviction a blow to democracy: MKSS, The Hindu, 26 December, 2010, http://www.hindu.com/2010/12/26/stories/2010122663711400.htm

Life term violates fair trial standards: Amnesty by Hasan Suroor, The Hindu, 26 December, 2010, http://www.hindu.com/2010/12/26/stories/2010122663721400.htm  

Testimony of a merchant sealed Binayak Sen's fate by Supriya Sharma, The Times of India, 26 December, 2010, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Testimony-of-a-me
rchant-sealed-Binayak-Sens-fate-/articleshow/7165181.cms  

A shocking verdict, The Hindu, 25 December, 2010, http://www.hindu.com/2010/12/25/stories/2010122566591400.htm

Lawyers, activists shocked by Binayak Sen verdict by Aman Sethi, The Hindu, 25 December, 2010, http://www.hindu.com/2010/12/25/stories/2010122567001600.htm

Rights activist binayak sen convicted, arrested, IANS, 24 December, 2010, http://in.news.yahoo.com/rights-activist-binayak-sen-convi
cted-arrested-20101224-003923-078.html

Prosecution struggles to link Binayak Sen case accused to conspiracy by Aman Sethi, The Hindu, 12 December, 2010,

http://www.hindu.com/2010/12/12/stories/2010121256671000.htm

Delhi institute mistaken for Pakistan intelligence agency by Supriya Sharma, The Hindu, 12 December, 2010, http://www.hindu.com/2010/12/12/stories/2010121262270800.htm

Intellectuals appeal for Binayak Sen's release, IBN, 27 December, 2010, http://ibnlive.in.com/news/intellectuals-appeal-for-binaya
k-sens-release/138708-3.html?from=tn

Stop Operation Green Hunt, Start Dialogue with the Local People, Mainstream Vol. XLVIII, No 17, April 17, 2010, http://mainstreamweekly.net/article1985.html

'The level of violence has gone up tremendously in Chhattisgarh', Rediff.com, 23 December, 2009, http://news.rediff.com/interview/2009/dec/23/binayak-sen-t
he-level-of-violence-has-gone-up.htm

Give Peace a Chance in Chhattisgarh, http://www.im4change.org/news-alert/give-peace-a-chance-in
-chhattisgarh-142.html