[Reader-list] [Announcements] Public Meeting on Binayak Sen in London

[Shuddhabrata Sengupta]

PUBLIC MEETING ON BINAYAK SEN IN LONDON
Please Circulate WIdely

Date: Tuesday, 10 March 2009.
Time: 7.00 p.m.
Venue: SOAS main building (room 4421), Thornaugh Street, Russell  
Square, London WC IX 0XG
Speakers: Professor Ilina Sen (feminist scholar, human rights  
activist, wife of Binayak Sen); Kavita Srivastava (People's Union For  
Civil Liberties, India); Ramesh Gopalakrishnan (Amnesty  
International); Professor Jonathan Parry (London School of  
Economics); Mike Marqusee (writer, activist).

Binayak Sen, doctor and civil rights activist, has been in prison  
since 14 May 2007, when he was arrested under the Chhattisgarh  
Special Public Security Act (which allows arrest up to 90 days  
without charge) on suspicion of 'involvement' with Maoist insurgents.  
The mineral-rich central Indian state of Chhattisgarh has seen  
massive forced displacement of adivasi (tribal) people to make way  
for the exploitation of resources by private companies in recent  
years. In this context, a civil war-like situation has emerged in the  
state, marked by brutal conflict between the state and the Maoists,  
who control significant stretches of territory. Binayak and Ilina Sen  
have been campaigning for human rights in Chhattisgarh for many  
years, and have been outspoken opponents of the Salwa Judum, a state- 
sponsored paramilitary terror initiative, which has involved arming  
local people 'against Maoists' and thus unleashing even deeper strife  
in the state. Soon after helping expose police involvement in the  
killing of 12 tribal people on 31 March 2007, Binayak Sen was  
targeted and imprisoned. His applications for bail have repeatedly  
been rejected by Indian courts.

Sen is nationally and globally known for his work in community  
health. In 1983, he was instrumental in setting up the community- 
based Shaheed Hospital for mine-workers, and, later, was a member of  
the state advisory committee initating community-based health  
programmes across the state. Recently, while in jail, he was awarded  
the Jonathan Mann Award by the Global Health Council for his work  
with impoverished communities and his commitment to human rights.

Sen's advocacy and activism, in the fields of both health and civil  
rights, have been a persistent thorn in the side of the Chhattisgarh  
government and, at a deeper level, the Indian state and its neo- 
liberal agenda. The embarrassingly flimsy 'evidence' on which he was  
arrested was his visits to a Maoist leader in jail, visits he had  
undertaken as state general secretary of the People's Union for Civil  
Liberties, to provide medical and legal assistance, with the full  
knowledge and permission of the jail authorities. It is impossible to  
see his arrest, and the continued refusal of bail, as anything other  
than a very deliberate attempt by the state to thwart dissidence  
expressed in any form, and to avert uncomfortable questions about its  
role and agenda.

For further details contact: Subir Sinha (ss61 at soas.ac.uk), Nandini  
Nayak (nandini at soas.ac.uk), Aditya Sarkar (bhochka at gmail.com,  
bhochka_81 at yahoo.co.uk)
--------------------


Shuddhabrata Sengupta
The Sarai Programme at CSDS
Raqs Media Collective
shuddha at sarai.net
www.sarai.net
www.raqsmediacollective.net


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