[Reader-list] Fwd: Bombay: Police interrupt screening of Sanjay Kak's documentary

[Jeebesh Bagchi]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: "Ranjit Hoskote" <ranjit.hoskote at gmail.com>
> Date: 28 July 2007 11:07:13 AM GMT+05:30
> To: "PEN India" <india.pen at gmail.com>
> Subject: Bombay: Police interrupt screening of Sanjay Kak's  
> documentary
>
>
> Dear Friends,
>
> We write to bring to your notice yet another violation of the  
> freedom of expression in India. On Friday, 27 July 2007, a posse of  
> policemen attached to the Dadar police station in Bombay broke into  
> a private screening of Sanjay Kak's documentary, 'Jashn-e-Azaadi',  
> and confiscated the DVD.
>
> The screening, which was hosted by the Vikalp group of independent  
> filmmakers, was intended to bring to a Bombay audience an eloquent  
> cinematic argument for dialogue beyond anguish and antagonism; for  
> an understanding of the 'Kashmir issue' in human and cultural  
> terms. Kak's 'Jashn-e-Azaadi' dwells on the experience of the  
> Kashmiri people during the protracted period of strife they have  
> suffered -- with equal elements of militancy, State repression,  
> criminal violence, and a struggle for self-articulation. According  
> to the Bombay police, it contains "scenes of a provocative nature".
>
> To disrupt the screening of such a documentary is only to re-enact  
> the brutality that has become the tragic norm in the Valley. We  
> strongly deplore this violation of the right of Indian citizens to  
> examine, express and discuss questions of great public importance,  
> without falling in line with the official view on these questions.  
> Such high-handedness cuts at the very root of democracy.
>
>
> Ranjit Hoskote
> Hon. Secretary-Treasurer
> THE PEN ALL-INDIA CENTRE
>
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