[Reader-list] Arundhati Roy Speaks Up on Binayak Sen: The Farce and Travesty

[Venugopalan K M]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: venukm <kmvenuannur at gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Apr 7, 2009 at 8:28 AM
Subject: Fwd: Fwd: [IHRO] Arundhati Roy Speaks Up on Binayak Sen: The
Farce and Travesty
To: kmvenuannur at gmail.com


"Tomorrow is World Health Day. Dr Binayak Sen spent the best part of
his life working among the poorest people in India, who live far away
from the government's attentions, with no access to clinics,
hospitals, doctors or medicines. He has saved thousands from certain
death from malaria, diarrhea, and other easily treatable illnesses.
And yet, he is the one in jail, while those who boast openly about
mass murder are free to go about their business, and even stand for
elections.
What does this say about us? About who we are and where we're going?"



---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Venugopalan K M <kmvenuan... at gmail.com>
Date: Apr 7, 7:51 am
Subject: Fwd: [IHRO] Arundhati Roy Speaks Up on Binayak Sen: The Farce
and Travesty
To: zeroneutral 2bigotry


Arundhati Roy writes on Binayak Sen
April 6, 2009 / Raipur, Chattisgarh

Dr Binayak Sen has been in prison for 22 months, arrested under one of
India's most draconian laws, the Chattisgarh Special Public Security
Act. This Act has such a vague, diffused definition of 'Unlawful
Activity' that it renders every person guilty unless he or she can
prove their innocence. Dr Sen's bail application was dismissed twice,
both times at the very outset, by the High Court of Chattisgarh and by
the Supreme Court of India. On neither occasion was there a discussion
on the merits of the case. On the 2nd of December 2008 the High Court
of Chattisgarh once again turned down his bail application, without a
discussion on the merits of the case, saying that there had been no
change in circumstances.
But there has been a change in circumstances. To begin with, the
charge-sheet has been filed. 64 witnesses have been examined by the
prosecution. Not one of them has provided legally admissible evidence
to support the accusations in the charge-sheet. Even the jail
officials, the Superintendent and the Jailer, who were called as
witnesses by the Prosecution, have ruled out the possibility of Dr Sen
being a carrier of letters given to him by Narayan Sanyal (said to be
a senior Maoist leader) who is a high security prisoner in Raipur
Jail. (It should be mentioned here that Narayan Sanyal has a medical
condition which requires surgical intervention from time to time,
which is why the jail authorities permitted Dr Sen to visit him
regularly.)
That Dr Sen should continue to be in prison when the case against him
has almost completely fallen through says a great deal about the very
grave situation in Chattisgarh today. There is a civil war in this
state. Hundreds are being killed and imprisoned. Hundreds of thousands
of the poorest of the poor are hiding in the forests, fearing for
their lives. They have no access to food, to markets, to schools or
healthcare. The thousands who have been moved into the camps of the
government-backed peoples' militia, the Salwa Judum, are also trapped
in sordid encampments, which have to be guarded by armed police.
Hatred, violence and brutality is being cynically spread, pitting the
poor against the poorest.
There is very little doubt that Dr Sen is in prison because he spoke
out against this policy of the State Government, because he opposed
the formation of the Salwa Judum. His incarceration is meant to
silence dissent, and criminalize democratic space. It is meant to
create a wall of silence around the civil war in Chattisgarh. It is
meant to absorb all our attention so that the stories of the hundreds
of other nameless, faceless people - those without lawyers, without
the attention of journalists - who are starving and dying in the
forests, go unnoticed and unrecorded.
Tomorrow is World Health Day. Dr Binayak Sen spent the best part of
his life working among the poorest people in India, who live far away
from the government's attentions, with no access to clinics,
hospitals, doctors or medicines. He has saved thousands from certain
death from malaria, diarrhea, and other easily treatable illnesses.
And yet, he is the one in jail, while those who boast openly about
mass murder are free to go about their business, and even stand for
elections.
What does this say about us? About who we are and where we're going?

 Arundhati Roy
__._,_.___


-- 
http://venukm.blogspot.com/