Individuals – Page 2 – free them all

Rona Wilson writes about Five Years of Incarceration – and the Audacity of Hope

05/07/2023 Asha

The Wire / by Rona Wilson

Father Stan Swamy died on this day two years ago, while incarcerated in the Elgar Parishad case. His co-accused Rona Wilson writes about continuing oppression in the country – and where he finds hope.
To have spent more than five years in prison, for alleged offences under the most draconian acts of the Indian Penal Code, fully aware that the only ‘crime’ of you and your co-defendants is speaking truth to power, is an experience that is surreal. To live such a quotidian life in prison is a dystopia that stares at you. Yet you have little choice in prison but to engage with this audacity. It is through words that you confront this dystopia, name it.
Through words we name the world we confront/inhabit, and make sense of our existence.
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I Am Not A Mute Spectator – Conversation with four Jesuit priests

05/07/2023 Asha

Asianspeaks / by Rejaz M Sheeba Sydeek

… Rejaz M Sheeba Sydeek had a conversation with four Jesuit priests, Fr. Cedric Prakash, Fr. Joseph Xavier, Fr. Frazer Mascarenhas, and Fr. Martin Puthussery, who were known to Stan and were outspoken against his extra judicial murder.

Rejaz: Several Christian clergymen were executed for opposing fascism during Hitler’s regime in Nazi Germany. Can we equate those institutional murders with Fr. Stan Swamy’s who was killed in India during Narendra Modi’s RSS led Brahmanic hindutva fascist regime because he was working for the liberation of the oppressed?

Fr. Cedric Prakash: Yes, we certainly regard the death of Fr. Stan Swamy as an institutional murder. Fr. Stan we all know accompanied the poorest of the poor, the excluded, and the exploited, the Adivasis and the Dalits in their struggle for a more humane, just, dignified, and equitable life. In doing so he had to take on the most powerful of the land like the politicians, the crony capitalists, the mining mafia, and other vested interests. Because of their illegal unconstitutional and nefarious deeds, Fr Stan was a thorn in their side. He was arrested on absolutely fabricated charges.
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Who are the acclaimed ‘BK-16’? / HRDs and families await justice, five years down

22/06/2023 Asha

HRDs and families await justice, five years down

22/06/2023

cjp / by Sabah Maharaj

Faulty investigation and severe loopholes in investigation, surrounds the controversial BK-16 case. International outcry has not helped move the trial five years down even while the targeted languish, families await the return of their loved ones
In June 2021, European Union parliamentarians, Nobel Laureates, renowned academics, and internationally known figures wrote a letter to the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, the then Chief Justice of India as well as the Chief Minister of Maharashtra, and other authorities in India, demanding to the release of political prisoners arrested with relation to the Elgar Parishad and Bhima Koregaon incident.
Amidst contested accusations of an anti-India conspiracy, militancy, and violence, five long years have passed since the BK-16 have been imprisoned without trial.
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Who are the acclaimed ‘BK-16’?

22/06/2023

cjp / by CJP Team

Five years have passed, and human rights defenders (HRDs) and their families continue to await justice.

Surendra Gadling
Status: Detained without trial
Charges:Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) since June 2018
Location: Taloja Central Prison, Mumbai
Gadling is a human rights lawyer and a Dalit activist. Over time, Gadling established himself as a keen advocate and a key figure in cases related to extrajudicial killings, police misconduct, false accusations, and injustices against Dalits and Adivasis in the region…
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Also read:
● Five years behind bars for five activists – Without bail, without charges being framed, without justice! – Various statements

‘Half a decade of arrest, meet time cut to 10 mins’

08/06/2023 Asha

TOI / by Shishir Arya

A post on Tushar Kanti Bhattacharya’s Facebook page has a picture of his wife Shoma Sen, with the lines below reading: Five years of incarceration. Another post has pictures of her along with co-accused Surendra Gadling, Sudhir Dhawale, Rona Wilson and Mahesh Raut. The lines read ‘Repeal UAPA: Behind bars five years and no charges framed, no bail’. A couple of likes can be seen in response.
Read more

Also read:
● Shoma Sen’s discharge application at NIA asserts discrepancies in evidence against her (The Leaflet / June 2023)
● Shoma Sen moves Supreme Court seeking bail (The Leaflet / Apr 2023)
● And he waits for Shoma Sen (Midday.com / May 2022)
● Part 1: ‘It is very difficult to see my mother like this’ (Rediff.com / May 2022)
● Part 2: When Your Mother Is In Prison… (Rediff.com / May 2022)

Prisoners aspire to pursue law, defend themselves; write entrance

05/05/2023 Asha

Sagar Gorkhe, Ramesh Gaichor. Poster by #bakeryprasad

The Indian Express / by Sadaf Modak

As per the Prison Statistics of India, 2021, while nearly 40 per cent of the prison population has studied below Class 10, 24 per cent have passed Class 10 but are below graduation.
Among thousands of aspirants who appeared for the Common Entrance Test (CET) for law held in Maharashtra on Wednesday was 35-year-old Sagar Gorkhe, who is in judicial custody in Taloja Central Jail in connection with the Elgaar Parishad case.
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Also read:
● Elgaar Parishad case accused allowed to appear for law entrance exam (The Indian Express / April 2023)

Sagar Gorkhe allowed to appear for law entrance exam

30/04/2023 Asha

The Indian Express / by Express News Service

“The applicant shall be given a waiver for the escort charges. The applicant shall not misuse the permission granted to the applicant vide this order,” the court noted.
A special court in Mumbai on Friday allowed Elgaar Parishad case accused Sagar Gorkhe to attend a Law entrance exam.
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Sagar Gorkhe seeks permission to appear for law entrance test

26/04/2023 Asha

Free Press Journal / by FPJ News Service

The accused is accused by the prosecution to be a member of Kabir Kala Manch, which it claims is a frontal organisation of the banned terror outfit Communist Party of India (Maoist).
Cultural activist Sagar Gorkhe has moved a special court conducting the Bhima-Koregaon case in which he is an accused, the permission to appear for the common entrance test for a three-year law course.
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● Video Statement by Sagar Gorkhe and Ramesh Gaichor (Sep 5, 2020)

hindi/ english subtitles | 2:20min | 2020

Kabir Kala Manch activists Sagar Gorkhe & Ramesh Gaichor have alleged that they’re being forced by the NIA to give confessional statements, claiming they are a part of Maoist organization. The two refused, and were arrested in The Bhima Koregaon case.
Their statement was recorded on Sep 5, 2020.

Watch their statement

● Kabir Kala Manch: A History of Revolutionary Singing and State Repression (ritimo / April 2022)

Podcast #2 | Ideas Behind Bars: Shoma Sen

16/04/2023 Asha

en | 18:01min | 2023

By InSAF India

This is a podcast in which we discuss the ideas, thoughts, and works of thinkers, activists, artist and scholars from India who have ended up behind bars for their work, or whose work has been censored or silenced. This podcast is produced by InSAF India in collaboration with nether quarterly.

Works by Shoma Sen discussed*:
“The Village and the City: Dalit Feminism in the Autobiographies of Baby Kamble and Urmila Pawar.” The Journal of Commonwealth Literature, vol. 54, no. 1, 2019, pp. 38–51., doi:10.1177/0021989417720251. “Class Struggle and Patriarchy: Women in the Maoist Movement.” Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 52, no. 21, 2017, pp. 56–56.
* Direct quotations have been shortened for clarity.

Sound Editor: Ashish Kumar
Voice: Divya Nadkarni
Listen to the podcast

Also Read:
● Mahesh Raut, Sudhir Dhawale, Shoma Sen and Rona Wilson seek bail from Bombay HC on parity with Sudha Bharadwaj (India Today / March 2023)

A Requiem for Fr Stan Swamy

04/04/2023 Asha

Herald Goa / by Jairam N Menon

Authorities everywhere – from classrooms to corporate boardrooms to national capitals – love silent spectators. Silent spectators look after their own interests, and if they see something that is wrong, they may sympathise but turn their eyes away. They are susceptible to the usual blandishments – an out-of-turn promotion, a plum posting etc. If nothing works, they are easy to intimidate. Outliers, on the other hand, are different. They come with a spine of steel. Authority finds them hard to understand, let along manage.
Read more

I am not a Silent Spectator – Why Truth has become so bitter, Dissent so intolarable, Justice so out of reach

An Autobiographical Fragment, Memory and Reflection

Indian Social Institute, Bangalore | by Stan Swamy | August 2021
Edition: Aug 2021
Publisher: Indian Social Institute, Bangalore
Language: English
Paperback: 149 pages
Access a free PDF copy of the book here

Hany Babu has been granted honorary doctorate degree by Ghent University

03/04/2023 Asha

by Maktoob / @MaktoobMedia (Apr 3):

dutch (en subtitles) | 2:51min | 2023

Noted academic Dr Hany Babu, a UAPA prisoner in the Bhima Koregaon case, has been granted honorary doctorate degree by Ghent University in Belgium. Dr Anne Breitbarth, Ghent University in this video read a poem on Babu by Shivangi Mariam Raj. It was published in Maktoob.
Watch video

Also Read:
● Jailed professor Hany Babu gets Honorary Degree by Ghent University in Belgium (free-them-all.net / March 23, 2023)