[Reader-list] JOINT STATEMENT ON POLICE ATTROCITIES AND STATE REPRESSION ON ANTI-POSCO STRUGGLE

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JOINT STATEMENT ON POLICE ATTROCITIES AND STATE REPRESSION ON ANTI-POSCO
STRUGGLE



We strongly condemn the attack on and illegal abduction by the Odisha
police of Umakanta Biswal, a famer belonging to Dhinkia village of Odisha,
and an active member of POSCO Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (PPSS), that has
been engaged over the last six years in resisting the forcible acquisition
of their land by the Odisha government for handing over to the South Korean
multinational corporation POSCO. This incident, which occurred on 2nd March
2012, is the latest in the series of atrocities inflicted by the Odisha
government and by hired goons associated with the government and the POSCO
company, on the people of these villages. Umakanta Biswal, who was engaged
in agricultural activity in his paddy field at the time of his abduction,
was pursued by a group of armed plainclothes policemen on a motorbike, and
shot at when he tried to escape. He has reportedly been kept in Paradip
prison, and has not been produced in front of a magistrate within 24 hours
of his arrest, as is required under law. We have cause to fear that he is
being tortured in police custody, and are gravely concerned about his
safety. This highly irregular, and illegal, form of detention of a citizen,
amounting to a kidnapping by the police, is emblematic of the situation in
which the villagers of the POSCO-affected area are living for the last six
years, just because they have tried to protect their lives and livelihoods
from being devastated by corporate greed. Numerous villagers have multiple
false cases lodged against them by the police, and people are in danger of
being abducted and detained by the police while being engaged in day to day
activities such as farming. There have also been incidents where a villager
taking his sick child to hospital has been arrested by the police. This
continuing victimization and violation of basic human rights of a whole
community of people is intolerable, and goes against all tenets of
constitutionality and humanity. We condemn this brutal and illegal action
by the Odisha government and demand that Umakanta Biswal be immediately
produced in court and released. We hope request the National Human Rights
Commisssion will take cognizance of this illegal detention and violation of
rights of a citizen, which is symptomatic of the violation of rights of the
entire community of villagers in the area of the proposed POSCO project.



Prof. Manoranjan Mohanty       POSCO Pratirodh Solidarity Samittee, New
Delhi

Prafulla Samantara                    NAPM and Lok Shakti Abhiyan

Prof. Ajit Jha                            Samajwadi Jan Parishad

Partho Sarathi Roy                   SANHATI Collective

Kiran Shaheen                          Media Action Group, Delhi

Aarti Chokshi                           Secretary PUCL, Karnataka

Students for Resistance Delhi University and JNU

Amit Chakrabarty                     Research Scholar, JNU

Mamta Das                              NFFPFW and POSCO Pratirodh
Solidarity, Delhi

Subrat Kumar Sahoo                POSCO Pratirodh Solidarity Samittee, New
Delhi

Kamayani Bali Mahabal            Lowyer Activist, Mumbai

Asit Das                                   POSCO Pratirodh Solidarity
Samittee, New Delhi

Nayan Jyoti                              Krantikari Naujawan Sabha

Shankar Gopal Krishnan           Campaign for Survival and Dignity

Mayur Chetia                           Research Scholar JNU

Arya Thomas                            Krantikari Naujawan Sabha

P.K. Sunderam             Research Scholar JNU

Bhanumati Gochhait                  POSCO Pratirodh Solidarity, Delhi

Ranjeet Thakur             Journalist, Uttarakhand

Rajni Kant Mudgal                   Socialist Front

Rita Kumari                              Pravasi Nagarik Manch

Pushpa Achanta                        Women against Sexual Violence State
Repression Karnataka





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