Binayak Sen: CPI(Maoist) Press Release

COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MAOIST)

CENTRAL COMMITTEE

Press Release

December 24, 2010

Serving people is not conspiracy!
Supporting people’s struggles can never be sedition!!

The Scamsters who amass billions of rupees are the real conspirators!

The Gangsters who sell-out our country to imperialists are the real traitors!!

Observe Protest Week from January 2nd to 8th, 2011 against the fascist Chhattisgarh government’s court judgments that sentenced Civil Rights activist Doctor Binayak Sen,
Maoist leader Narayana Sanyal, trader Piyush Guha under sedition for life imprisonment and magazine editor Asit Sengupta for eight years imprisonment!

On December 24, the Raipur district additional sessions court sentenced for life civil rights activist Dr. Binayak Sen, our party Politburo member Comrade Narayan Sanyal, trader Piyush Guha under IPC, Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act and UAPA implicating them in false cases. The life sentences were pronounced by B.P. Verma under IPC section 124 (sedition), 120 B (conspiracy) and many other kinds of sentences were pronounced under various sections of CSPCA and UAPA. The eight year sentence for Asit Sengupta was pronounced on the same day by O.P. Gupta. Both these judgments are the latest additions to the huge cache of anti-people, fascist repressive measures of the Indian ruling classes.

Sentencing for life our party Politburo member Comrade Narayan Sanyal, Binayak Sen, a doctor who had dedicated his life as a doctor serving the poor people selflessly, a prominent civil rights activist and the vice-president of PUCL and Piyush Guha, a trader belonging to Kolkata is the most shameless thing for the rulers to do even while boasting that this is the biggest democracy in the whole world. Opposing the repressive policies of the government, the fascist Salwa Judum, raising his voice for the repeal of the black law CSPSA and standing in support of the just peoples movements are the ‘crimes’ committed by Dr. Binayak Sen for which he has been punished with life sentence. When he was arrested in May 2007 and kept in jail for two years, immense protests were held and severe condemnations were issued by democratic sections, medical community, Nobel laureates and many others in India and abroad. Pronouncing this sentence ignoring all this can only mean that the fascist rulers are without any scruples or embarrassment issuing a threat to all the democratic, progressive and patriotic sections of our country. If responding positively towards people’s issues in a legal, democratic manner, serving the people sincerely and criticizing the anti-people policies of the government is ‘sedition’, then one can imagine what kind of ‘democracy’ is being practiced in this country and how dangerous it is for the people. The eight year sentence for Asit Sengupta (editor of the Hindi version of ‘A World To Win’ which is published in various languages all over the world) who is languishing in jail since three years with the false accusation that he was participating in Maoist activities is nothing but stifling the Freedom of Press. Recently, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh, DGP Viswaranjan, Bastar IG Longkumer and Dantewada SP Kalluri gang had published pamphlets under the name ‘Maa Danteswari Adivasi Swabhimani Manch’ and had openly declared that they would kill journalists SRK Pillai, Anil Sharma and Yaswant Rai along with democrats Himanshu Kumar and Arundhati Roy and had the audacity to declare that it is indeed their own doing! So much for the ‘rule of law’ harped upon by our rulers day in and day out!

Comrade Narayan Sanyal, a 73-year old veteran communist who began his revolutionary life in 1968 and has dedicated more than four decades of his life for the liberation of the oppressed people, is ailing with various health problems and has been languishing in the dark dungeons of the fascist Chhattisgarh government since five years. The Sonia-Manmohan-Chidambaram-Raman Singh terrorist gang is killing Maoist leaders in fake encounters and sentencing many of them to harsh punishments under black laws. They are subjected to physical and mental tortures in the inhuman conditions prevailing in jails.

On July 29, 2010, our party activist Comrade Malati @ Santi Priya and a worker Surendra Kosaria were sentenced to ten years imprisonment using false witnesses under the case that Maoist propaganda CDs were sent to the MLAs. Amitabh Bagchi, a Politburo member of our party and Comrade Kartik, a state committee member of West Bengal, incarcerated in Ranchi jail, were also sentenced to life imprisonment through fast track court in Jharkhand. On October 29, the AP government sentenced Comrade Panduranga Reddy and three others to four years imprisonment in the Alipiri case (attack on ex-CM Chandrababu) using false witnesses. Many more revolutionary activists and ordinary people are being sentenced to very harsh punishments including capital punishment by the reactionary courts serving the exploiting ruling classes. Comrades Sushil Roy and Kobad Gandhi who are senior leaders and ailing with various health problems and old age; comrades Shobha, Patitpavan Haldar, Pramod Mishra, Vijay, Asutosh, Balraj, Chintan, Biman, Bidhan, Chandi Sarkar, Balganesh, Jharkhand Abhen’s Jeetan Marandi and thousands of other comrades are denied bail, being implicated in false cases one after another and made to languish in jails for years together. In West Bengal, Comrade Swapan Das arrested under UAPA was denied health care in Jail and became the first martyr of this draconian law.

The UPA government bent on selling our natural and human resources to imperialist MNCs like Vedanta and to comprador bourgeoisie like Tata, Essar, Jindal, Mittal etc has declared CPI (Maoist) as the biggest internal security threat as it is standing in their way offering stiff resistance to this unlimited loot. As part of this, the government is carrying on vicious foul propaganda using its propaganda machine. Since August 2009, in the name of Operation Green Hunt the central and state governments are resorting to brutal attacks on the revolutionary movement and particularly adivasis are being massacred by deploying millions of police and paramilitary forces in Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and other states. This offensive is carried on under the guidance and full support of imperialists, particularly the US imperialists. The exploiting rulers are using every means at their disposal to portray our party which is fighting with the lofty aim of establishing people’s government of democratic classes basing on the unity of worker-peasants by overthrowing the imperialists, bureaucratic comprador bourgeoisie and the feudal classes, as ‘terrorist’ and ‘traitor’. Why are the ministers, political leaders, big bourgeoisie and their brokers, the real traitors who are amassing billions of rupees in scams and stacking them in Swiss Banks shamelessly roaming in the corridors of power not booked under SEDITION? Why are all those criminals who perpetrated and facilitated the Bhopal Gas Tragedy not called CONSPIRATORS? How could striving for the liberation of the toiling masses become SEDITION? How could democrats who raised their voices and pens in support of people’s movements be called CONSPIRATORS?

These sentences are nothing but a part of the bigger conspiracy of the ruling classes to eliminate all kinds of hurdles to their anti-people, unpatriotic and immoral neo-liberal economic policies. This is an alarm signal that fascist repression would intensify further in the near future. These judgments are an eye opener for those who believe and get deceived innocently that there is still some semblance of democracy in this country. Though the overt statements of the ruling gang declare that Maoist movement is their prime target, what is happening in reality is a fascist onslaught on progressive and democratic forces who wish for the welfare of the people and aspire to protect the interests of our country vis-à-vis the imperialists. Our party is appealing to the people to stand united against this offensive and defeat it through a determined fight.

The comprador governments are resorting to suppression of people’s movements and nationality liberation struggles using black laws like UAPA, CSPCA, MCOCA and AFSPA following in the footsteps of the US government which promulgated black laws like the Homeland Security Act. The reactionary legal system which had never bothered to book or sentence the saffron terrorists who had killed many innocent people in the Mecca Masjid, Malegaon and Ajmer Sharif bomb blasts or the scamsters and political gangsters involved in scams like 2G Spectrum (worth 1,76,000 crores of rupees), Commonwealth games, Adarsh housing society, Karnataka lands and dozens and dozens of other scams are eagerly sentencing revolutionaries, people’s leaders, democrats and activists of national liberation movements in Kashmir and North-East.

The CPI (Maoist) Central Committee is appealing to all democratic, patriotic forces, national liberation activists and to all civil rights activists, organizations, students, intellectuals, teachers, writers, artistes, doctors, lawyers, media friends, workers and peasants to come out on the streets condemning and opposing these judgments delivered through the reactionary legal system by the collusion of the UPA government at the centre and the BJP government in Chhattisgarh. We appeal to all of you to build united and militant agitations demanding the immediate repeal of UAPA, CSPCA, MCOCA and AFSPA. We appeal to all the progressive, democratic and revolutionary organizations, communities and individuals of various countries to condemn in severe terms this criminal act of the Indian ruling classes and express their vigorous protest in various democratic struggle forms. In the past the international community stood in strong solidarity with the Indian people’s movements and had condemned the arrest of Binayak Sen and demanded his immediate release. Now the time has come for it to play this role more solidly.

Our party calls upon the people to observe protest week all over the country from January 2 to 8 against these judgments by creatively taking up various protest activities including press conferences, statements, dharnas, rasta rokos, meetings, protest rallies, processions, signature campaigns, wearing black badges, waving black flags, burning of effigies etc., and to take up legal battles condemning severely the anti-people, traitorous and fascist policies of the ruling classes.

Our party is calling upon all our ranks, PLGA forces and revolutionary mass organizations to take up various protest forms on this occasion by mobilizing vast masses.

Our Central Committee is making it very clear that no call for bandh is being given as part of this protest week and is requesting the people and media not to believe the deliberate propaganda of the police to portray this as a bandh call.

(Abhay)

Spokesperson,

Central Committee,

CPI (Maoist)

Dr Binayak Sen’s Statement to the Court

ICAWPI

I am a trained medical doctor with a specialization in child health. I completed my MBBS from the Christian Medical College, Vellore in 1972, and completed studies leading to the award of the degree of MD (Paediatrics) of the Madras University, from the same institution in 1976. After this, I joined the faculty of the Centre for Social Medicine and Community Health at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi and worked there for two years, before leaving to join a field based health programme at the Friends Rural Centre, Rasulia in Hoshangabad, MP. During the two years I worked there, I worked intensively in the diagnosis and treatment of Tuberculosis and understood many of the social and economic causes of disease. I was also strongly influenced by the work of Marjorie Sykes, the biographer of Mahatma Gandhi, who lived at the Rasulia centre at that time.

I came to Chhattisgarh in 1981 and worked upto 1987 at Dalli Rajhara (district Durg), where, along with the late Shri Shankar Guha Niyogi and the workers of the Chhattisgarh Mines Shramik Sangh, I helped to establish the Shaheed Hospital, that continues to practice low cost and rational medicine for the adivasis and working people of the surrounding areas upto the present. After leaving Dalli Rajhara, I worked to develop a health programme among the Adivasi population in and around village Bagrumnala, which today is in Dhamtari district.

This work depended on a large group of village based health workers who were trained and guided by me. When the new state of Chhattisgarh was formed, I was appointed a member of the advisory group on Health Care Sector reforms, and helped to develop the Mitanin programme, which in turn, became the role model for the ASHA of the National Rural Health Mission. A copy of the Order of the Department of Health and Family Welfare of the Govt. of Chhattisgarh regarding my nomination to the advisory group mentioned above is attached. (Annexure 1.)

Signature Campaign: Indian Justice Has Failed Dr Binayak Sen

Sign the Petition

To: The President of India, Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Delhi We, the undersigned are shocked at the conviction of well-known public health doctor and human rights worker Dr Binayak Sen by a Raipur Sessions Court on charges of ‘sedition’ and ‘waging war against the Indian State’. The conviction carries a sentence of life imprisonment, a drastic and completely unjust fate, to be handed out to one India’s finest social activists.

We call upon the higher Indian judiciary to uphold principles of law, justice and the rights enshrined in the Indian Constitution and undo the severe damage done to the reputation of the judiciary itself through the Raipur court’s flawed judgment.

The charges against Dr Sen, of allegedly aiding outlawed Maoist rebels in Chhattisgarh, have not been corroborated by any of the witnesses or evidence produced in court so far. On the contrary there have been numerous instances of the prosecution resorting to use of fabricated documents and contradictory testimonies to press its case.

We further believe that the charges against Dr Sen, made under draconian ‘anti-terrorist’ laws, are trumped up and intended to ‘punish’ him for his outspoken criticism of the Chhattisgarh government for its human rights violations against its own tribal populations. Dr Sen, a heart patient, has already spent over two years in prison from May 2007 to May 2009 and was released on bail by the Indian Supreme Court.

That the world’s largest democratic country cannot tolerate criticism and non-violent human rights activism is a matter of shame to Indian citizens everywhere and this attitude of intolerance needs to be roundly condemned. Such low quality of justice, routinely delivered in our courts, is indeed itself a threat to Indian democracy.

Not only should Dr Sen be released immediately from imprisonment and charges withdrawn, there needs to be a thorough inquiry against all those who have framed him so maliciously. We also demand adequate compensation to Dr Sen for being deprived of his basic freedoms and his family for being subjected to the most inhumane mental torture and persecution.

Binayak Sen Case: Condemn the Murder of Justice in Raipur Court!

ICAWPI.ORG

CRPP PRESS RELEASE: 24/12/10

CONDEMN UNEQUIVOCALLY THE MURDER OF JUSTICE BY THE SESSIONS COURT IN RAIPUR IN THE BINAYAK SEN CASE!

LET US UNITEDLY FIGHT TO REPEAL ALL FASCIST DRACONIAN LAWS INCLUDING UAPA AND THE CHHATTISGARH SPECIAL PUBLIC SECURITY ACT!

The Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners (CRPP) condemns unequivocally the murder of justice in the case of Dr. Binayak Sen, a people’s doctor and one of the first civil libertarians to expose the state sponsored Salwa Judum that was undertaken by the BJP government on the tribal people in Chhattisgarh and ably supported by the Congress which is the opposition party in the state. In fact Dr. Sen while also exposing one of the worst cases in post-47 India of malnutrition and total neglect of the everyday life of the tribal people in the region showed the world the shocking story that was slowly unfolding—a slow genocide of the people in this region. And along with this slow genocide was the barbaric onslaught of the state sponsored Salwa Judum. Yes it was the voice of conviction of Dr. Binayak Sen against this murder, rape and loot of the tribal people that arouse the conscience of the people of the subcontinent as well as all democratic and freedom loving people of the world. To condemn such a person to life imprisonment u/s of 120(B), 124(A) of the IPC and 1,2,3,5, Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act and Sec 39 (2) of the UAPA (2004 amended) without even an iota of evidence brings once again forth the real face of Indian democracy with the judiciary reflecting the abysmal nadir to which the system has convoluted iself to.

All supposed pillars of democracy of the Indian state are increasingly proving to be hollow for the common people fighting for their livelihoods and those who raise the issues of the most exploited, and oppressed being the target of ire of a state that is day by day churning out more and more anti-people policies and supplementing it with a penal system teethed with the worst draconian laws. The case of Dr. Binayak Sen is a reminder to every democratic and freedom loving people of the subcontinent to once again raise their voice unitedly against such a penal state that is assuming fascist proportions. Notwithstanding the fact that about 22 noble prize winners from all over the world had sought his immediate freedom and lauded the exemplary work Dr. Sen had in the medical sciences, in popularising it among the poorest of the poor, and in providing the best of treatment to the impoverished adivasis in Central India, what the state could give him in return was life imprisonment for a case that hardly has any evidence!

This is the same state that has given blanket protection for all the scamsters and looters, be it the politician, bureaucrat, coporate honchos, and last but not the least judges right from the sessions court to the highest seat of justice in India.

And naturally what can a doctor who is stubborn enough to go to the most impoverished regions of ‘Shining India’ and work among the poorest of the poor for their betterment, let alone survival expect from a system which was always living in a world of denial about the existence of such a world! And his only crime—that he had dared the criminal negligence of a state which had blood in its hands of a slow, but cold and calculated genocide of a people through systematically denying any opportunity to live a life of dignity!

It is high time that all democratic and freedom loving people should join hands to raise their voice against the mockery of justice and once again fight to put an end to all such draconian laws of colonial vinatage. Today it is Dr. Binayak Sen. Tomorrow it can be anyone of us.

In Solidarity,

Gurusharan Singh, President

Amit Bhattacharyya, Secretary General

SAR Geelani, Working President

Rona Wilson, Secretary, Public Relations

COMMITTEE FOR THE RELEASE OF

POLITICAL PRISONERS

185/3, FOURTH FLOOR, ZAKIR NAGAR, NEW DELHI-25

Protest Program Against Binayak Sen’s Arrest

Join

Citizens’ Protest

Against Travesty of Justice in Conviction of

Binayak Sen

Monday, 27 December,

2.30 pm,

Jantar Mantar, Delhi

Scamsters, Mass murderers and killers Roam Free While Dr. Binayak Sen is sentenced for Life WITHOUT Evidence

RISE up against INJUSTICE

AISA, PUDR, PUCL, PUCL Delhi, Anhad, HRLN, Delhi Film Archive, JTSA, Delhi Solidarity Group, AIPWA, Saheli, CAVOW, Foundation for Media Professionals, Jan Sanskriti Manch, The Group, Arundhati Roy, Kamal Chenoy,Swami Agnivesh, Harsh Mandar and many other organizations and individuals

Manisha (9811625577), Farah (9818461817), Sohaib (9899462042)

Support and express solidarity with the Political Prisoners who are on an Indefinite Hunger Strike

Saturday, December 11, 2010

ICAWPI

Support and express solidarity with the Political Prisoners who are on an Indefinite Hunger Strike in Medinipur Central Jail from 10th December(Human Rights Day) 2010

Nearly 150 political prisoners-mostly under trail–incarcerated in the Medinipur Central Jail-which the government calls ‘Correctional Home’-will start hunger strike from 10th December 2010 on the Human Rights Day for an indefinite period-true to the long tradition of hunger strikes organized by political prisoners in Medinipur as also other jails of West Bengal and outside in near and distant past. The prisoners include those arrested on the charge of having Maoist links, or becoming members of the People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCAPA) that spearheaded the Lalgarh movement from November 2008, or common villagers standing by the cause. Many of these prisoners have been languishing in jail for years together in abysmal conditions virtually without trial.

The Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners (CRPP) express wholehearted support to the striking prisoners and urge all democratic forces throughout India and other parts of the world to raise their voice in support of their just demands.

The demands placed by the prisoners to the authorities are as follows:

1. The joint forces should be withdrawn and the ‘Operation Green-hunt’ stopped immediately and the government should sit for a dialogue with the PCAPA without delay.
2. Section 144 should be immediately withdrawn, and there should be unrestricted entry of all newspersons, intellectuals and other people.
3. Legal steps should be taken against the CPI(M) hermads.
4. Judicial enquiry should be initiated for the murder of all leaders, members and supporters of the People’s Committee including Lalmohan Tudu, Sidhu and Umakanto Mahato, and offenders should be brought to book.
5. The cooked up charges against all the prisoners incarcerated in the jails of West Bengal on political grounds, including those arrested from Jungle Mahal should be withdrawn and the prisoners released unconditionally.
6. Repeal all draconian acts including the UAPA and the AFSPA.
7. Prisoners imprisoned on political grounds should be given the status of political prisoners and the government should have to bear the cost of maintaining their families.
8. Prisoners should be given opportunity to meet the members of their families and receive necessary articles from them in Medinipur court.
9. After arrest, no participant in a movement should be made to "disappear" illegally. Everyone should be produced in court within 24 hours.
10. Nobody should be ‘shown arrested’ by tagging in one false case after another.
11. Judicial enquiry should be initiated in all cases of rape including those in Sonamukhi and the offenders brought to book.
12. Old men and women in the Jungle Mahal should be given adequate old-age pension and widows given widow-pension, and all in this connection should be paid off immediately.
13. All surplus grain kept in the FCI go-downs should be immediately distributed among the poor people of Jungle Mahal, and not to be allowed to either to rot or be burnt.
14. Stop biased investigation into the Jnaneswari Express sabotage and initiate neutral investigation; a neutral investigation team should be formed with people from cross-sections of society and actual culprits should be punished.
15. Indian army in Kashmir should be immediately withdrawn. The hopes and aspirations of the people of the land should be honoured.
16. Persons involved in the destruction of Babri Masjid and subsequent riots should be given exemplary punishment.
17. Prisoners confined in the cells should be allowed to meet other prisoners. The illegal system that segregates one prisoner from another should be immediately stopped.
18. Those among the life-convict prisoners who have already passed 14 years of incarceration should be set free immediately.
19. Telephone service should be introduced inside jails and every prisoner be allowed to avail himself/herself of this opportunity.
20. Instead of every prisoner being forced to have his beard cut with one common razor, each prisoner should be allowed to have a separate arrangement of his own.
21. Arrangement should be made for the supply of water inside the cells for 24 hours and the inhuman custom of carrying water drums over shoulders should be stopped immediately.
22. Arrangement should be made for political prisoners to take political classes inside prisons. No political literature can be seized by the jail authority.
23. Political prisoners should be allowed to contact media persons outside and they should be allowed the right to have their political writings published in different newspapers.
24. Intellectuals coming to meet political prisoners should be allowed to have table interview with them.
25. The newly-proposed system of payment of daily wage@ Rs.100.00 to convicts should be implemented immediately; wages should not be kept due.
26. Prisoners seeking a copy each of West Bengal Correctional Services Act and the Jail Code should be provided one copy each.
27. Canteens should be introduced inside Medinipur Jail.
28. Political prisoners should be provided with all the daily newspapers at government expense.
29. Proper infrastructure for treatment in Medinipur Jail Hospital should be made and necessary machines installed.