Angry New Year Dr Binayak Sen!

As the New Year of 2011 rolls in it will already be an entire week inside a cold and harsh Raipur prison for Dr Binayak Sen.

For many of us the conviction of this well-known health and human rights activist by a local court in Chattisgarh for ‘sedition’ and ‘conspiracy’ has made it impossible to mouth clichés like ‘Happy New Year’ to anyone anymore. It is really more an ‘Angry New Year’ and that will remain our greeting till Dr Sen is released, all charges against him dropped, his tormentors punished and his family compensated for all the torture they have undergone and are going through.
We are angry at the state terrorism of the Chhattisgarh government, using the Maoist insurgency as an excuse, for a wholesale attack on all democratic principles. We are angry at the political persecution of Dr Sen and many others in Chhattisgarh for taking up the cause of tribal populations. We are angry at the summary executions of ordinary people by police or their displacement from ancestral lands by corporations with the help of corrupt governments.
We are angry at the drastic life sentence handed to Dr Sen for the alleged crime of ‘passing letters’ between two alleged Maoists. We are angry at the subversion of the entire judicial process with its planted evidence and refusal to treat defence arguments with any impartiality.
We are angry at the illogical and slipshod judgment – full of howlers and contradictions- that seems to have been written more by a Chhattisgarh policeman than the novice judge himself. We are angry at the verdict being pronounced on Christmas Eve while the High Court was on vacation to prevent a quick appeal or petition for bail.
We are angry at the use of false charges and a long drawn out judicial process to incarcerate and harass Dr Sen depriving him of his basic Constitutional rights. We are angry at the judicial system in this country that allows the police to misuse laws by the police to arbitrarily arrest and imprison thousands of people every year. We are angry at the open murder of basic democratic principles in the ‘world’s largest democracy’.
We are angry at the charge of ‘sedition’ against a man with a record of impeccable public service when murderers and scamsters not only go scot-free but also happen to occupy high positions in government. We are so angry that if the powers-that-be claim Dr Binayak Sen is guilty of ‘sedition’ our response is: ‘SO ARE WE!”

Satya Sagar is a journalist, writer, videomaker based in New Delhi. He can be contacted at sagarnama@gmail.com
Source: Countercurrents.org