The Wire / by Partho Sarothi Ray

Just as the British rulers used to refer to political prisoners during their rule as ‘terrorists,’ the rulers of today also call people imprisoned for opposing them ‘terrorists’.

Today, September 13, is Political Prisoners Day.

“Ora Bhagat Singher bhai, ora Khudiramer bhai,
Samasta rajbandider mukti chai, mukti chai”
(‘They are the brothers of Bhagat Singh, they are the brothers of Khudiram,
We want the freedom of all political prisoners’)
– Popular Bengali song by Bipul Chakraborty

On September 13, 1929, Jatin Das, the 24-year-old revolutionary freedom fighter, died in Lahore Jail after a 63-day long hunger strike, demanding humane treatment of political prisoners under the British Raj…
The current government has similarly instituted cases like the Bhima Koregaon-Elgar Parishad case and the Delhi riots case to allege ‘conspiracies’ and thereby imprison a large number of activists and critics and demonise them as ‘anti-nationals’ and ‘terrorists’.
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Video: Custodial Violence, Judicial Negligence and State Apathy

12/09/2022

en │ 52min │2022

By The Polis Project

On 5 October 2020, Atikur Rahman, journalist Siddique Kappan, student Masood Ahmad, and taxi driver Mohammad Alam were arrested in Mathura, in Uttar Pradesh in, India They were on their way to meet the family of a Dalit woman who was raped and murdered by a group of men from the dominant caste in Hathras…
The denial of medical treatment and bail must be seen as a part of a larger pattern of abuse of power directed toward dissenters and political prisoners in India. On 5 July 2021, 84-year-old Jesuit priest and human rights defender Father Stan Swamy died in judicial custody at the Holy Family Hospital in Mumbai, India.
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