Profiles – Page 16 – free them all

Patriotism of Social Activists is Increasingly being Punished: Activist Sudha Bharadwaj

25/01/2022 Asha

Newsclick / by Ajaz Ashraf

India is far from realising the promises of justice and equality made in the Constitution, says the well-known activist, citing her experiences in prison as an under-trial and as a lawyer representing workers.
After spending nearly three years in jail, Bharadwaj was released on bail last month. Her bail conditions proscribe her from speaking on the Bhima Koregaon case and leaving Mumbai, although she has now been allowed to live in Thane. NewsClick did not ask her any question on the case, and she politely refused to answer any question she thought was even remotely connected to it. In the first part of this interview, Bharadwaj speaks on the meaning that Republic Day, the Constitution, and the law have for jail inmates, based on her conversations with them.
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Also read
● Part 2: My Spirit has not Been Broken: Activist Sudha Bharadwaj (NewsClick / Jan 2022)

The lightness and laughter of Sudha Bharadwaj

24/01/2022 Asha

Mid Day / by Ajaz Ashraf

I Spoke to Sudha Bharadwaj for two hours over the phone. Out on bail after spending over three years in jail, where she had been packed off for her alleged role in the 2018 Koregaon Bhima violence, I presumed a mournful, weary voice would narrate her experiences during incarceration. Or a voice raging against those who scripted her arrest on October 28, 2018. But Bharadwaj can laugh as few can.
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Video: Bhima Koregaon Case: Sudha Bharadwaj Released After 3 Years In Jail

en | 4:53min | 2021

By MidDay

Activist #SudhaBharadwaj accused in the #BhimaKoregaon case has been released from Byculla prison on Thursday. The court had directed that she be released on a bond of Rs 50,000 and two sureties. However, the court has set some other stringent conditions similar to those set for co-accused #VaravaraRao who was granted bail on medical grounds.
Watch video

Also read:
● HC disposes plea of eight accused seeking rectification in order denying them bail (Scroll.in / Dec 2021)

Sudha Bharadwaj: I hope I can begin practising in Mumbai / Prisoners are cut off from legal remedies

21/01/2022 Asha

Sudha Bharadwaj interview: ‘I hope I can begin practising in Mumbai’

21/02/2022

The Indian Express / by Sadaf Modak

Among the conditions set for Bharadwaj’s bail was that the 60-year-old would not make any statement on the proceedings of the case. Recently, she got permission to leave Mumbai limits for Thane. Excerpts from an interview:
Can you tell us about finding yourself in jail, first in the Yerwada Central Prison in Pune and then the Byculla Women’s Prison?
The first experience is quite frightening. It is an immediate loss of dignity, privacy and identity.
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Sudha Bharadwaj: ‘When inside, you see how cut off a prisoner is from legal remedies’

21/02/2022

The Indian Express / by Sadaf Modak

Bharadwaj said one reason was that the remuneration given to lawyers on the legal aid panel was not sufficient.
Calling the experience of being in jail an eyeopener, trade unionist and human rights lawyer Sudha Bharadwaj has said she hopes to work to improve legal aid for prisoners.
In an interview to The Indian Express, Bharadwaj, who was released on December 9 on bail, said she was considering filing a PIL on the matter.
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● ‘I Am Ready To Put On My Black Coat’: Lawyer Sudha Bharadwaj, Out On Bail After 3 Years In Jail (article 14 │ Jan 2022)
● Sudha Bharadwaj speaks – A Life in Law and Activism. (PUCL │ Jan 2021 │ 316 pages)

‘I Am Ready To Put On My Black Coat’: Lawyer Sudha Bharadwaj, Out On Bail After 3 Years In Jail

18/01/2022 Asha

Article 14 / by Chitrangada Coudhury

After three years and three months in prison, Bhima-Koregaon accused and undertrial Sudha Bharadwaj was granted bail in December 2021 by the Bombay High Court on a technical ground. The human rights lawyer and law professor talked to us about her time in prison, the state of legal aid for forgotten undertrials, the need for courts to address congested prisons, particularly in the pandemic, and her plans to rebuild her life as a lawyer and a mother, as she grappled with bail conditions which prevent her from leaving Mumbai and Thane.
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Sudha Bharadwaj: The prison life of India’s best-known woman activist

11/01/2022 Asha

BBC / by Soutik Biswas

After three years in prison, one of India’s best-known activists is trying to set up home in a new city and find work.
Bail conditions prohibit Sudha Bharadwaj from leaving Mumbai until the end of a trial in which she is accused of a role in a 2018 incident of caste-based violence and alleged links with Maoists. She is also not allowed to talk about the case.
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Also read:
● ‘The Point Is Not to Surrender’: The Sudha Bharadwaj I Know (The Quint / Dec 2021)

Visible change but current government silent on core issues / Sainthood for Father Stan Swamy

29/12/2021 Asha

Visible change from past but current government silent on core issues

29/12/2021

Times of India / by ASRP Mukesh

A day before the second anniversary of the Hemant Soren-led alliance government on Wednesday, Jharkhand Janadhikar Mahasabha (JJM), a group of several rights bodies, on Tuesday said despite getting a clear mandate, the incumbent administration has failed to bring any significant relief and improvement in the lives of the common people…
Stating that both JMM and Congress, in their election manifestos, had promised action to release undertrials (tribals, Dalits, backward and minorities jailed in minor cases without conviction), the JJM said, “There is complete silence on this issue too. The Hemant Soren government had raised its voice against the inhuman arrest of Stan Swamy and paid him a tribute after his death, but it remained silent on the issues raised by Stan.”
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Sainthood for Father Stan Swamy

25/12/2021

Deccan Herald / by N Jayaram

Hindutva chauvinists might get a strong message if the process leading to his canonisation were to begin soon
On Christmas day, thoughts turn to a good Christian who was snatched away from us on July 5 this year.
Father Stanislaus Lourduswamy, or Stan Swamy, had dedicated his life to serving Adivasis in Central India, after having been director of the Indian Social Institute, Bengaluru, from 1975 to 1986. He was implicated and jailed – falsely, in the opinion of a large number of human rights activists and even noted jurists – in the infamous Bhima-Koregaon case.
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Also read:
● Even after Stan Swamy’s death, the fight to get justice for Jharkhand undertrials is still alive (Scroll.in / Dec 2021)
● Teacher, companion, motivator: Adivasi-rights activist Dayamani Barla remembers Stan Swamy (The Caravan/Sep 2021)
● PUDR Report: Framed to Die – The Case of Stan Swamy (pdf file, 45 pages; PUDR/Aug 2021)

Mama Teltumbde and her children

13/12/2021 Asha

Midday / by Ajaz Ashraf

At the cremation of her sixth child, Anusaya Teltumbde did not get to meet her eldest son Anand, who languishes in jail. As one of India’s top intellectuals, is he undeserving of even 14-day bail?
The meaning of mercy often shines in its absence, as this story of 92-year-old Anusaya Teltumbde bears out. Born in and then married into an agriculture labour family, Anusaya gave birth to eight children. The youngest of them, Praveen, a professor, died in 2009; her sixth child, Milind, a Maoist commander, was gunned down last month. At his cremation were present Mama Teltumbde and her surviving children barring the eldest of them, Anand.
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‘The Point Is Not to Surrender’: The Sudha Bharadwaj I Know

07/12/2021 Asha

The Quint / by Smita Gupta

‘They call Sudha a terrorist, an anti-national. I have known her for over 30 years. You can’t find a better friend.’
“Sudha’s got bail!” These were the three words we have been desperate to hear for over three years and for which our brilliant and committed lawyers – Adv Yug Mohit Chaudhry and his team – have left no stone unturned; news her daughter Maaysha (Anu to all of us) has agonised over and lived for the past three years. And yet, I couldn’t believe it until I spoke to the lawyers myself. For all of us, Sudha’s friends and family, it is devastating that on some technicality the other co-accused were denied default bail.
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‘This fight is not just about Father Stan Swamy’: Father Mascarenhas

27/11/2021 Asha

Rediff.com / by Jyoti Punwani

‘Father Stan was concerned about other innocents who may be implicated and put inside without the slightest proof, the way he was.’
Father Mascarenhas, the former principal of St Xavier’s College, Mumbai, tells Jyoti Punwani why even though Father Swamy is no more, the legal fight to prove that the 84-year-old priest from Jharkhand was not what the State portrayed him to be, is important.
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Bombay HC Asks Jesuit Group to File New Plea if They Want Stan Swamy’s Name Cleared

26/11/2021 Asha

Pic: Mumbai, Sep 2021

Indian Jesuits want Father Stan’s reputation restored

26/11/2021

UCA News / by UCA News reporter

They believe the late activist priest was implicated in mob violence for standing up for the rights of indigenous people.
Indian Jesuits plan to appeal to a court to clear the stigma attached to their activist colleague Father Stan Swamy, who died under detention after being arrested under a draconian anti-terror law.
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Bombay HC Asks Jesuit Group to File New Plea if They Want Stan Swamy’s Name Cleared

25/11/2021

The Wire / by The Wire Staff

Swamy died while his appeal in the high court against the NIA special court’s order denying him bail was pending.
The Bombay high court on Wednesday asked the lawyers of late Jesuit priest and tribal rights activist Stan Swamy to file a fresh petition against observations made by a special National Investigation Agency court against him in the Elgar Parishad case.
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HC asks lawyers to file fresh plea against special NIA court’s observations against Stan Swamy

24/11/2021

The Indian Express / by Express News Service

After his death on July 5, Swamy’s lawyers had requested the court to keep pending his appeals against special court orders rejecting his bail pleas on medical grounds and merits.
The Bombay High Court on Wednesday asked late Father Stan Swamy’s lawyers to file fresh independent plea raising grievances pertaining to the observations made against the Jesuit priest by the Special NIA Court while rejecting his bail pleas.
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Bombay High Court Disposes Father Stan Swamy’s Petitions ; Allows Jesuits To Initiate Separate Proceedings

24/11/2021

Live Law / by Sharmeen Hakim

Four and a half months after Father Stan Swamy’s demise, the Bombay High Court has allowed the Jesuits to initiate separateproceedings to clear the odium attached to his name and reputation because of the Bhima Koregaon – Elgar Parishad case.
A division bench of Justices Nitin Jamdar and Sarang Kotwal disposed of as withdrawn Swamy’s bail appeal and anotherpetition challenging his prosecution under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
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