[Marxism] Fwd: Leaflet of Conference on Political Prisoners in Delhi

[ramratan chatterjee <ramratanchatterjee@xxxxxxxxx>]

Political Prisoners <thearrested1@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:  Date: Sat, 15 Mar 2008 
10:40:18 +0000
From: "Political Prisoners" <thearrested1@xxxxxxxxx>
To: surendrasurendra@xxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Leaflet of Conference on Political Prisoners in Delhi

  The degree of civilisation in a society
  can be judged by entering the prisons
   
   
   
   INAUGURAL CONFERENCE
  COMMITTEEFORTHERELEASEOFPOLITICALPRISONERS
  MARCH31,APRIL 1, 2008, LTG AUDITORIUM, MANDI HOUSE,NEWDELHI
  Maulana Nasiruddin, Sheela Didi, Nanak Baghel, Suraj Tekam, Nirmal 
Brahmachari, Dr. Binayak Sen, Lachit Bordoloi, Mohammad Afzal,Perari Valan, 
Pozhilan, Kunangudi Haneefa, activists of Bhoomi Ucched Pratirodh Committee 
(BUPC) in West Bengal, Narayan Sanyal, Sushil Roy, Malla Raja Reddy?these are 
just a few names of the growing list of political prisoners abounding the 
prisons in various regions. Besides, there are the Sri Lankan Tamils, 
Bangladeshi Muslims, and people from Bhutan, Pakistan and Afghanistan who are 
being denied the rights of refugees, put behind bars. A year before, numerous 
people from Nepal were put behind bars in India accused of being associated 
with the Maoist movement there. The growing statistics of prisoners lodged in 
various prisons in India run into several lakhs. A fairly good number of them 
are political prisoners. The numbers are fast increasing day by day. The 
overwhelming approach of the government to dub any issue of socio-economic and
 political significance as a 'law and order' question has made prisons the 
venue of 'disciplining' through torture, rape, humiliation and mistreatment.
  The Kashmiris, Nagas, People of Manipur, Assam, the Bodos, Kamtapuris and 
other communities demanding their right for self-determination have been put 
behind bars for waging war against the sovereignty and integrity of the Indian 
nation. There are thousands of Kashmiri Muslims lodged in various prisons in 
India. Most of them are even without proper charges framed against them. The 
Muslim community have been a specific target of the so called 'war against 
terror' of the Indian State. The cases of Naxalites such as Maoists and others 
being arrested from various regions such as West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, 
Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala have 
filled the headlines of news papers. 
  Media as the court of trial: It is the media, its multi-dimensional effects 
on public psyche where the image of the 'terrorist', the 'anti-national', the 
'single largest internal security threat', all get profiled; towards 
manufacturing the consent for a State devoid of impunity?any regard for norms, 
procedures, for the basic human rights of the detained as guaranteed by the UN. 
The construction of the 'enemy' of the State starts well ahead in the media as 
it caricatures all outstanding problems faced by the vast sections of the 
people. The obliging media in the times of Liberalisation, Privatisation and 
Globalisation produces a surfeit of images of the people, their issues, their 
movements against exploitation, oppression, mistreatment and discrimination, 
against displacement, destitution, destruction and death as something which 
have frozen and fossilised in time and should hence be repackaged akin to the 
politics of charity promoted by foreign and State funded NGOs and
 the so-called civil society.
  Thus tribal communities are poor as they are anti-development; Muslims have 
gone astray because their religion is conservative and they don't feel proud to 
be Indian; every Kashmiri Muslim is a suspect because of being a Kashmiri as 
well as a Muslim; the Maoists are trigger happy Robin Hoods devoid of any 
politics who resort to extortion, drug peddling and live out of plunder of the 
forest wealth. All nationality movements are against the sovereignty and 
security of the Indian nation. The civil and democratic rights activists who 
demand the enforcement of norms and procedures, the rights of the political 
prisoner are portrayed as accomplices in fomenting terrorising, against the 
integrity of the nation.
  In the age of standardisation, protests or dissent has not been an exception. 
Dissent has also got standardised in terms of advocacy as well as petitioning. 
All other forms of dissent hence are against civility and should be punished. 
Thus when a detainee is brought before the people through the trial enforced by 
the media the prejudice is so much that the opinionated public gives a passive 
consent to the State to do whatever it wants to the political prisoner. Any 
such vilifying campaign of the media goes against the right of the detained to 
be presumed innocent as required by Article 14 (2) of the International 
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). 
  Being a political prisoner is a definite political act: To confine a people, 
a person, a community behind bars for the reason that they have refused to be 
treated the way the state is dealing with them; they have refused to be 
oppressed, exploited, discriminated and mistreated; is the inability of the 
State to deal with its own limitations. It is also a clear sign that the State 
has lost the humanity that it claims to have or vouches for every citizen. The 
haste with which the State has targeted all these people as 'evil', 
'anti-national', 'foreign', 'anti-development', shows that it has lost its 
possibilities and is threatened by its own limitations. Yes it dreads the free 
movement of such citizens. Thus limitations take precedence and become the 
norm. Today, in addition to the already existing draconian laws like Armed 
Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), Disturbed Areas Act and Unlawful Activities 
Prevention (Amendment) Act, we have every state in India enacting its own
 internal security laws that have given the military, paramilitary and police 
sweeping powers to apprehend anyone under the slightest of suspicions or even 
without it. It is the State that has violated the norms and procedures and the 
rule of law, to act politically to prevent the other opinion from taking 
precedence among the people. The fight for the release of these prisoners 
becomes important at a juncture where the law has failed to be impartial and 
fair. In fact, going through the numerous cases of incarceration one is forced 
to say that all laws and procedures have been bypassed to ensure the 
confinement of the political prisoner for life. Even in cases where the 
prisoner has been released in certain specific instances, the traumatic life 
after acquittal for the prisoner denotes the magnitude of the prejudice that 
society has undergone vis-a-vis the hatred and hysteria of the 'war against 
terror' created by the state.
  Political Prisoners are the measure of our humanity: Political prisoners are 
people who are convinced about the possibility of a better society for the 
greater common good. Not only were the convinced about the need for a better 
world but were deeply involved in making it a possibility. One might disagree 
with their ideology. Yet some might have reservations about the means they 
resort for the betterment of a world of miseries and wretchedness. Those who 
are in power might strongly disagree with their socio-economic and political 
aspirations. These people, who are defied the light of the day, condemned to 
live death within the dark walls of the prison by the powers that be, belong to 
a wide spectrum of political beliefs through which they dream to espouse the 
social cause that they have given their life.
  It is this conviction that forced Rabindra Nath Tagore to defend the cause of 
the political prisoner during the days of anti-colonial struggle against the 
British. The people who fought against British were also against the 
exploitation and oppression of the freedom loving people of India. Today when 
India is being sold in the form of Special Economic Zones, for loot and plunder 
of her forest wealth, mineral wealth, water, land, people, everything, by the 
rich and powerful, made possible by the rulers of this country, it is natural 
for the freedom loving people to oppose and fight it. Anyone who fights against 
any form of oppression, exploitation, mistreatment and discrimination cannot be 
a prisoner.
  Defending the rights of the Political Prisoner: The jails are often 
overcrowded with the worst hygiene conditions. The jail manual is hardly 
followed. A good number of prisoners are condemned to rot in the prisons as 
they have hardly any means to meet the bail fee. The preamble of the United 
Nation's Universal Declaration of Human Rights ensures the need for countries 
to uphold the rights of anyone resorting to dissent against the policies of the 
State. This guarantees the rights of the political prisoner. Contrary to the 
claim of being the largest democracy in the world, India has not even 
recognised political prisoner as a category. Though the West Bengal government 
has come up with a definition of the political prisoner it is never 
implemented. It becomes important to defend the right of the political prisoner 
to have safeguards against all forms of torture, rape, solitary confinement, 
right to have a lawyer of their choice, right to books, periodicals, to 
communicate,
 assemble among themselves, right to their religion. 
  Especially, at a time when there is a growing consensus among the judiciary, 
executive and the legislature with active connivance of the fourth estate to 
deny any possible rights to political prisoners, for a political prisoner, it 
becomes important to fight for every moment of her/his life behind bars. There 
is no other way the right of the political prisoner can be achieved as she/he 
has been denied the right to express their political opinion or to organise on 
that basis.
  The inaugural conference on political prisoners is a historic and definite 
step in this direction. The memories of the days of emergency revisits us a 
cold reminder. It brings back the memories of the days of anti-colonial 
struggle, that of the valiant resistance of Bahadur Shah against the East India 
Company and the attendant hanging to death of thousands of Muslims belonging to 
the slaughter community. It enlivens the spirit of the heroic martyrdom of 
Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, Sukhdev and Ashfaqullah; of Bhoomaiah and Kishta Goud in 
Telangana in the 60s; the memory of Maqbhool Bhat being shown the gallows in 
the 80s. 
  In Solidarity,
  Amit Bhattacharyya
  Coordinator,
  Convenor's Committee of the Conference Preparatory Committee
  Surendra Mohan, A Marx, Amit Bhattacharyya, SAR Geelani, GN Saibaba, Rona 
Wilson
  5 March 2008-03-09
  For the Conference on Political Prisoners
  Address: 185/3, Fourth Floor, Zakir Nagar, New Delhi-110025
  Ph: 09836318354   09810081228   09871498354 Email: thearrested1@xxxxxxxxx
   


       
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