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| Binayak Sen completes second year in jail amid global campaigns, awards |
| Sreelatha Menon / New Delhi May 14, 2009, 01:42 IST |
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Civil rights activist Binayak Sen will complete two years in jail on May 14 as an undertrial on charges of assisting Naxals in Chhattisgarh even as demands for his release are getting louder and stronger, within and outside the country.
This includes nationwide demonstrations on May 14, a motion tabled in the UK’s Parliament, an editorial and at least two articles on Sen’s detention in British medical journal Lancet decrying India’s human rights record, and a recent critique of the trial by Amnesty International, besides calls from the likes of Nobel laureate Amartya Sen and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar of Art of Living to release him.
“A distinguished Indian paediatrician and a tireless human rights activist has been imprisoned in a Raipur jail in the state of Chhattisgarh, India. He has been convicted of no crime but is being held under draconian state laws for his alleged association with the Naxalites — an outlawed Indian communist movement, deemed to be a threat to national security. To date, there is no proof of his involvement in extremist activities but he remains incarcerated...” reads the Lancet editorial.
The Guardian, the British newspaper, carried a statement with signatures of scores of academics criticising the detention of Sen recently when the G20 summit was on in London.
The international attention that Sen is drawing sitting in his cell in the Raipur jail is also thanks to at least four awards that have been bestowed on him ever since he was arrested, beginning with the Jonathan Mann prize of the US.
A campaign to release him is holding a demonstration at the Indian High Commission in the UK on May 14 and will be handing in a petition demanding his release, on bail, among other demands.
“A motion was tabled and a number of Parliamentarians have expressed their support to our campaign,” says a leader of the campaign in the UK. The protest before the high commissioner’s office is expected to take the message home to the Indian government, feels Dwijen Ranganekar, one of the leaders of the campaign from the UK.
The protest is organised under the banner of the Release Binayak Sen Now (UK) group — a mix of health practitioners, academics and organisations. “We liaise with a variety of community groups, South Asia solidarity groups, Amnesty International and other human rights group,” says Ranganekar.
In India, the medico friends circle has taken up the issue in every part of the country. Activists like Mira Shiva and Sabu George, who were earlier engaged in issues like patent rights of Indian seeds and sex pre-determination, respectively, have temporarily gone slow on their pet issues for the last one year to devote themselves totally to the ‘Release Sen’ campaign.
In fact, almost every campaign in town whether it is on food rights, land rights, or child rights, most of them have a foot in the Binayak Sen campaign.
Sen himself is fighting a battle against the state seeking transfer to a hospital in Vellore for treatment for heart disease.
The Supreme Court, which had dismissed the previous petition seeking his release, has admitted the petition filed last month and has also issued a notice to the state government asking it to reply why Sen was not being given bail.
Says Patnaik: “The reason why the petition had to be admitted this time was that all witnesses whom Sen could have influenced have already given their statements and there is no reason why Sen should continue to be detained.”
Veteran lawyer and former Union minister Ram Jethmalani has agreed to fight the case of Sen free of cost, says Patnaik.
Whether or not the international protests have any impact on the case of Sen’s detention, the Chhattisgarh government’s reply to the Supreme Court is likely to take the case further in the coming days.
However, Sen’s wife Ilina Sen likes to keep her fingers crossed. “Nothing has happened so far. So, we are just doing what we are supposed to do without thinking much about the consequences,” she says.
Purushottaman Mulloli another public health activist based in Delhi however feels that Sen has ceased to be an issue. ''It has become a cause which everyone wants to be associated with and which everyone would love to keep alive,’’ a view which may not have much acceptance among civil society groups.
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