Binayak Sen, People's Union for Civil Liberties general secretary, national vice-president and civil rights activists, was arrested on May 14 by the Chhattisgarh police for allegedly violating the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 2004, and the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act, 2005. The trumped up charge? He's supposedly a Naxalite.
Bullshit. As a doctor, he has provided health care to the local people who cannot afford it and/or have access to it. He has also tirelessly worked for social and civil justice, including bringing up the killing of 12 Adivasis on March 31. His only crime seems to be that he has criticized the Salwa Judum, a movement that has been sponsored by the state government to counter the Naxals. The Hindu points out that the arrest of Sen is "an example of state repression":
Alleging that fake encounters in the past two years have claimed the lives of 155 people in Chhattisgarh, members of the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) on Thursday accused the State Government of subjecting Adivasis to atrocities under the garb of Salwa Judum - a people's movement against terrorism and naxalism initiated by the Government in June 2005.
The recent arrest of PUCL member Binayak Sen in Chhattisgarh, they said, was an example of the Government's repression on voices that drew attention to human rights violations.
They accused the Government of "framing" Dr. Sen, a paediatrician and the vice-president of the PUCL in Chhattisgarh. He was arrested on May 14 under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 2004, and the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act, 2005 [Link].
Sign the online petition here.
- Desi Italiana's blog
- Login or register to post comments
-
I don't know nearly enough about this, but I'm wonderin if the implication is that if he was a Naxalite or assisting Naxalites, his arrest be morally (as opposed to legally, which is a question for lawyers) justified, even if he was only providing social services?
But if he is providing social services- even if he has Naxalite links- how is his arrest "morally justified" if he never partook in any activities that could possibly be of questionable nature?
The government is going bonkers and imagining naxalites everywhere..
Maybe we will have an emergency imposed sometime early next year.
I think the government is using the "Naxalite" label in pretty much the same way as it has used the Aatankvaadi (terrorist) label in the past in Punjab, Kashmir, Assam and so on...
In our society, calling someone a Naxalite or aatankvaadi is designed to rob them of all legitimacy... So, a Naxalite doctor is a terrorist doctor, and therefore deserves to be thrown in jail, or so the propaganda goes.
I laughed out loud when the US Congress passed the USA PATRIOT Act here after 9/11, because I had seen the same absurd self-righteous theater played out again and again in India... Ultimately, these heavy-handed policies contain the seeds of their own destruction, albeit over the bodies, and drenched in the blood, of many innocent people, who are pasted with a label and thrown into the meat-grinder of a state driven by fear-mongering authorities.