[ The below joint statement was released at a press conference held at the Press Club of India in New Delhi on 5 March 2012. Names of several signatories who endorsed the statement are missing from document that was released to public.]
Statement: We are dismayed and pained at the government’s campaign of vilification of the sustained popular movement against the Koodankulam nuclear plant, which has raised vital issues of atomic safety. These issues have assumed pivotal importance worldwide after the Fukushima disaster, the world’s first multiple-reactor meltdown. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has trivialised the movement, and the five months-long relay fast by thousands of people, by attributing it to “the foreign hand”, or Western non-governmental organisations, without citing even remotely credible evidence. This is part of a growing, dangerous, tendency to delegitimise dissent. If we reduce genuine differences and disagreements with official positions to mere plots of “subversion” by “the foreign hand”, there can be no real engagement with ideas, and no democratic debate through which divergences can be reconciled. Absence of debate on nuclear safety, itself a life-and-death matter, can only impoverish the public discourse and our democracy. The “foreign hand” charge sounds especially bizarre because the government has staked all on installing foreign-origin reactors and tried to dilute the nuclear liability Act under foreign pressure. The claim that all is well with our expansion-oriented nuclear power programme sounds hollow in the absence of an independent, thorough, transparent review by a broadly representative body, which includes non-Department of Atomic Energy personnel and civil society representatives. Some of us called for this 10 months ago. But the government ignored our plea. Its attitude to nuclear hazards is worrisome given its abysmal and persistent failure to protect Indian citizens’ lives and rights in the Bhopal gas disaster. We urge the government to cease harassment and persecution of activists of the anti-nuclear movements in Koodankulam and other sites, to drop concocted charges against them, and instead to resume dialogue. Until people’s fears and concerns are allayed, all nuclear power-plant construction must be halted. There must be no use of force—categorically, and regardless of the circumstances. Ramming nuclear plants down the throats of unwilling people will usher in a police state. A Gopalakrishnan A K Shivakumar A. Muthukrishnan Abdul Raheem TM Abhay Vir Singh Achin Vanaik Adil Jassuwala Admiral L. Ramdas Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat Ajay Kumar Ajay Patnaik Ajaya Kumar Singh Ajit Patil Alaka Basu Ali Javed Amar Jesani Amartya Paul Amit Bhaduri Amita Baviskar Ammu Joseph Anil Chaudhary Anuradha Chenoy Arun Mitra Aruna Rodrigues Arundhati Roy Asit Das B K Pal B N Thakur Bhimrao Bansod Bina Sarkar Bindu Desai Capt Rama Rao Chaitali Bhowmick D Sucharitha Deepa Dhanraj Deepak Nayyar Dinesh Abrol Dipankar Gupta EAS Sharma Elisa Morsicain Farah Naqvi Gabriele Dietrich Gargi Chakravorthy Gauhar Raza Harsh Mander Himanshu Thakkar Imrana Qadeer Janaki Nair Jaya Mehta Jayati Ghosh Justice B G Kolse-Patil Justice H. Suresh Kamal Mitra Chenoy, Kamayani Bali Mahabal Kavita Shrivastava Kumkum Roy L S Chawla Lakshmi Kutty Lalita Ramdas Lata Mani, Bengaluru Lawrence Surendra M G Devasahayam M V Ramana Maj Gen. S G Vombatkere Malobika Mary John Meenakshi Ganguly Meha Dixit Meher Engineer Mili Sahu Minati Panda Mira Shiva Moggallan Bharti Mohan Rao Mr N Madhusudhan Muhammaed Muhassin Mukul Kesavan Mukul Sharma Nabita Baruah Nandini Gooptu Nandini Sundar Navroze Contractor Neeladri Bhattacharya Nirupam Sen P K Sundaram P M Bharagava Pijush Kanti Das Pooja Ravi Prafulla Bidwai Prafulla Samantara Prakash Katoch Prashant Bhushan Pratihar Sharma Primila Lewis Rafiq Ellias Rajaneesh S R Rajeev Bhargav Rajesh Tandon Ram Manohan Reddy Ramchandra Guha Ramila Bisht Romila Thapar Rupa Chawdhary S Alok Kumar S N Malakar S P Shukla S.Srinivasan Sadanand Menon Sanghamitra Gadekar Sankar Narayan Sankara Narayanan Santanu Chakravarty Seema Mustafa Shabnam Hashmi Shankar Sharma Sharmila Tagore Shripad Dharmadhikari Shruti Dubey Shruti Jain Soumya Dutta Soumya Rajan Sudhir Chella Rajan Sumit Chakravartty Sumit Sarkar Supriya Varma Surendra Gadekar Suresh Khairnar Susan Visvanathan Suvrat Raju Swathi S Senan Tanika Sarkar Uma V Chandru Umasankar behera V K Yadavendu V.N.Sharma Vandana Shiva Vineet Tiwari Vineeta Bal Vinod Koshti Vivek Sundara Xavier Jeyaraj Zoya Hasan [The above statement is available at: http://www.sacw.net/article2571.html ] -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "humanrights movement" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/humanrights-movement?hl=en.
