[Reader-list] Marimuthu Bharathan

[Patrice Riemens]

Marimuthu Bharathan, director of the Dalit organisation Human Rights
Education and Protection Council - KALAM (*), and Dalit himself has been
awarded the prestigious Human Rights Defenders Tulip Prize (*), to be
bestowed upon him by the Netherlands minister of external affairs Frans
Timmermans to-day.

Marimuthu Bharathan, will however not be able to attend the ceremony in
his honour as the Indian authorities refuse to give him a passport to
travel abroad. Marimuthu Bharathan is accused of complicity in murder in a
court case involving a score of Dalits that drags on since 2009. He is
free on bail.

The lapidary rendering of the situation on the Dutch radio news this
morning was "for the people in power in India Marimuthu Bharathan is an
untouchable and as such unworthy of such an honorific distinction". And
went onnote that last year's Tulip Prize recipient was also prevented from
being present in The Hague: the Chinese dissident Ni Yulan - this does not
put India in good company.

But I was surprised that I could find next to nothing - nothing actually -
on Indian media about all this. Readers of this list may know more.


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(*) Links:
http://www.cry.org/projects/tamilnaduproject5.html  (KALAM)
http://www.humanrightstulip.org/simplepage/home/    (Tulip Prize)
http://www.dalits.nl/130107.html  (Dalit news network - in Dutch)
https://www.facebook.com/hrdefendersalert  (Human Rights Defenders Alert -
India, on FB)