Professor Illina Sen, wife of human rights activist Binayak Sen, said on Friday she was not planning to leave the country, and that the couple did not need a “certificate of patriotism” from anyone. Dr. Sen was recently convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment by a local court in Chhattisgarh on the charge of sedition. Ms. Sen, who was here to attend a conference organised by the Indian Association for Women's Studies,...

The Indian government should drop sedition cases against rights activists Binayak Sen, Arundhati Roy, and others, the Human Rights Watch said Thursday. The international body has also urged the Indian parliament to repeal the colonial-era sedition law, as it has been used by the authorities to 'silence peaceful political dissent'. The authorities have pursued sedition charges against peaceful activists, despite a Supreme Court ruling that prosecution under the sedition law requires incitement...

Condemning the conviction of physician and human rights activist Binayak Sen as a travesty of justice, more than 250 physicians, medical professionals and students here on Tuesday demanded his immediate and unconditional release. Dr. Sen along with Maoist ideologue Narayan Sanyal and city-based businessman Pijush Guha was sentenced to life imprisonment on December 24 by a Raipur court on charges of criminal conspiracy to commit sedition under Section 124(a) of IPC. Assembling...

A day after the arrest of the Mumbai-based Dalit activist and editor of Vidrohi magazine, Sudhir Dhawle (42), by the Gondia police in Wardha on charges of waging a war against the State, more than 150 human rights activists, social activists, writers and journalists protested here on Tuesday against the detention. Mr. Dhawle, also a freelance journalist, was arrested on charges of having links with the banned Communist Party of India...

The sentencing of Dr. Binayak Sen involves unverified charges, and unreasonable and unconstitutional findings. The constitutional validity of the charges of sedition and conspiracy that were used to implicate rights activists such as Binayak Sen merely for their anti-establishment political thoughts needs to be challenged. The action ridicules the constitutional guarantee of freedom of expression. The sections of the Indian Penal Code that deal with “conspiracy to wage war against the government”...