---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: SANSAD <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Dear friends:
*Univ. of California, Berkeley,
invites Director-General of Police of Chattisgarh State*
If you are in the academia, this is a special request to you. It came to me
only today; I have endorsed it, and am obliged to send it to you all in the
hope that those in the academia, in North America or else where, will kindly
add their name to the growing list.* IT MUST BE DONE RIGHT AWAY.*
Of all the academic places in North America, it is the University of
California, Berkeley, that has invited the Director-General of Police of the
Chattisgarh State in India to be a speaker at a seminar on "Indian
Democracy: Justice and the Law",
The note below is self explanatory. If you agree with the protest letter,
kindly send your e-mail to:
"Aravinda <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>"
listing your
i) Name,
ii) Title/Designation and
iii) Affiliation
you could copy it to us at <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> too.
Many thanks
hari sharma
for SANSAD
#############
This note is to ask for your endorsement of the attached protest
letter to Mr. Vishwa Ranjan, the Director-General of Police of
Chhattisgarh. You may remember that the Chhattisgarh state government
has imprisoned noted physician and human rights activist Dr. Binayak
Sen for the last 16 months. Despite an international campaign to
ensure due process, including an appeal signed by 22 Nobel laureates,
Dr. Sen and other human rights activists, lawyers and journalists in
Chhattisgarh continue to be harrassed by the Chhattisgarh police.
This coming Saturday, the DGP is an invited speaker at a panel on
Chhattisgarh as part of a seminar at UC Berkeley on Indian Democracy,
entitled "Justice and the law." The seminar is organized by the
Center for South Asia Studies at UC Berkeley and the Foundation for
Democratic Reforms in India (fdri.org). In light of what's happening
in Chhattisgarh, the participation of the top police official of
Chhattisgarh in a seminar about Justice and Law in India assumes
special significance. We've attached the draft of a protest letter to
the DGP, which we plan to hand-deliver to the DGP this Saturday. We
hope you will sign on to the letter, and also forward this request to
your colleagues. Please send your endorsement to "Aravinda
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>" listing your
i) Name,
ii) Title/Designation and
iii) Affiliation
------------
To: Mr. Vishwa Ranjan, Director-General of Police, Chhattisgarh
We, concerned members of university and college faculties, write to
condemn the ongoing violations of the human and civil rights of its
citizens by the state of Chhattisgarh, primarily through the agency of
your department, the Chhattisgarh police force. These violations
include the arbitrary arrest and indefinite detention of hundreds of
people, including Dr. Binayak Sen, an internationally respected
provider of medical services to Chhattisgarh's tribal communities,
threats and assaults against civil liberties activists, lawyers and
journalists, and most egregious of all, the growing depredations of
the state security forces, including the police and the so-called
special police officers (SPOs), as well as the state-sponsored violent
militia known as the Salwa Judum. We regret to note that not only
have you been unsuccessful in halting these violations of human
rights, but you have actively justified them and accused anyone
opposing them as "demoralis[ing] the state machinery."
In a report released this past July, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has
documented in detail the human rights abuses committed by the Salwa
Judum against civilians in Chhattisgarh. HRW's report gives the lie to
your oft repeated claim that the Salwa Judum is a spontaneous unarmed
peaceful anti-Naxalite movement by documenting eyewitness accounts of
"police participating in violent Salwa Judum raids on villages -
killing, looting, and burning their hamlets." Similar to earlier
investigative reports by the Independent Citizen's Initiative and a
joint report by the People's Union of Civil Liberties (PUCL) and
People's Union for Democratic Rights, among others, the HRW report
also documents the arbitrary detentions and torture of villagers by
the Chhattisgarh police. Reporters without Borders noted with concern
that "[journalists] are prevented from reporting and investigating by
corrupt politicians, police and Salwa Judum members, many receiving
harassment, intimidation and beating ... Currently journalists report
from press releases produced by the government or risk their life and
career by reporting objectively both sides of the struggle."
Perhaps the best-known case of a non-violent dissenter being arrested
and jailed in Chhattisgarh is that of Dr. Binayak Sen, a prominent and
early critic of the Salwa Judum and of state violence. Dr. Sen, a
physician serving the poorest and most marginalized communities in the
interior and tribal areas of Chhattisgarh for more than 25 years, has
been a guiding light for peace and community health. He has won many
awards for his work, including the Paul Harrison Award in 2004 from
CMC Vellore, his alma mater, from which he had been graduated over 30
years ago following a most distinguished academic career, and most
recently the Jonathan Mann Award from the Global Health Council in May
2008. Binayak Sen appears to have earned the government's ire by
being a vocal critic of the high-handed and illegal ways adopted by
the state in the name of suppressing the Maoist insurgency in
Chhattisgarh. For instance, investigations by ETV-Madhya Pradesh and
others had exposed that 12 alleged Maoists, killed by the police in
Santoshpur village in a supposed gunfight on March 31, 2007, were
unarmed tribals executed at close range. Dr. Sen's insistence, along
with others, finally forced the Chhattisgarh State Human Rights
Commission to take note of this investigation and order the bodies of
the victims exhumed. Shortly afterward, Dr. Sen was arrested. Not
only have you and the state prosecutor failed to present any legally
valid evidence against Dr. Sen, the responsible police officers appear
to be blatantly concocting fables and planting false evidence.
Other citizens who have been harrassed by the police include: Amarnath
Pandey and DP Yadav, two lawyers who had filed lawsuits regarding the
'encounter killing' of one Narayan Khairwar and the custodial rape of
one Ledha Bai; filmmaker Ajay TG, a member of the State Executive
Committee of the Chhattisgarh Unit of PUCL, and journalist Sai Reddy,
both of whom had to be released on bail when the police failed to file
a chargesheet even after ninety days; Himanshu Kumar of the Vanvasi
Chetna Ashram, an NGO that implements implements government programs
on health, nutrition, and education, for the 'crime' of assisting
fact-finding teams investigating human rights abuses; journalists
Santosh Poonyem and Kamlesh Paikra for daring to write about the
violence committed by Salwa Judum; and even the participants at the
third annual meeting of Chhattisgarh Net (www.cgnet.in), an online
citizen journalism initiative.
It bears noting that such actions by the law enforcement machinery of
any state are not only in violation of the laws of India, but also run
counter to India's international treaty obligations. The
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (CCPR), which
India acceded to in 1979, declares in relevant part that:
* All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of
that right they freely determine their political status and freely
pursue their economic, social and cultural development. (Article 1.1)
* Every human being has the inherent right to life. This right
shall be protected by law. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his
life. (Article (6.1)
* No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or
degrading treatment or punishment. (Article 7)
* Everyone has the right to liberty and security of person. (Article
9.1)
* Anyone who has been the victim of unlawful arrest or detention
shall have an enforceable right to compensation. (Article 9.5)
* All persons deprived of their liberty shall be treated with
humanity and with respect for the inherent dignity of the human
person. (Article 10.1)
We strongly urge you, as the highest police official in the state of
Chhattisgarh, to:
* Follow in letter and spirit, the values enshrined in the
Indian Constitution and the CCPR.
* Stop encouraging an all-out civil war in Chhattisgarh through
your support of the Salwa Judum. The extra-judicial killings by the
state security forces and the SPOs are so distasteful and blatant that
the Supreme Court of India recently noted that this amounts to
abetment of murder by state officials. Excesses committed by the
security forces, as documented in a recent NHRC report, were deemed
"very painful to read" by the Chief Justice, Supreme Court of India.
* Stop victimizing dissenters in Chhattisgarh. Drop all charges
against political prisoners, including Dr Binayak Sen, filmmaker Mr.
Ajay TG, journalist Mr. Saii Reddy. Release all political prisoners
unconditionally, pay compensation for the harassment and loss of
liberty they have suffered due to their unwarranted detention, and
arrest and prosecute state officials and police officers involved in
harassing, arresting and holding all these political prisoners.
* Ensure a just and honest governance that improves the lives of
millions of desperately poor people in Chhattisgarh.
Signed,
--
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