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Category: Solidarity

What does state’s treatment of pre-trial political prisoners tell us?

What does state’s treatment of pre-trial political prisoners tell us?

The Indian Express / by Harsh Mander

Harsh Mander writes: It’s been three years since Bhima Koregaon accused were incarcerated by a state that continues to oppose bail for them, despite Covid and other grave threats to their health.
June 6 was a sombre milestone — the third anniversary of the incarceration of five rights activists in the Bhima Koregaon conspiracy case. Eleven more were subsequently jailed for the same conspiracy. These 16 women and men — the BK-16 accused — are intellectuals, lawyers, a poet, professors, cultural and rights activists and an 84-year-old Jesuit priest, all with sterling records of service with India’s most oppressed people.
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Stan Swamy’s endurance has left a message for the world: Archbishop Thomas Menamparampil

Stan Swamy’s endurance has left a message for the world: Archbishop Thomas Menamparampil

The Leaflet / by Thomas Menamparampil

Eighty-four year old Father Stan Swamy who had spent decades serving the tribal people of Jharkhand, was arrested on trumped up charges, subjected to endless interrogations, and confined to Taloja jail for over eight months. As he battles illness, his endurance has left a message for the world says Archbishop Thomas Menamparampil who was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011.
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Remembering Shoma Sen on the third anniversary of her incarceration – A HEROINE IN OUR HEARTS

Remembering Shoma Sen on the third anniversary of her incarceration – A HEROINE IN OUR HEARTS

By Release Rof Shoma Sen

A HEROINE IN OUR HEARTS

In these sanitized times
Of death-tainted rivers
And doom-scented air,
When that which we
Cannot even see
Has brought us to our knees,
When falsehood rules
And each passing day
In every possible way,
Turns us into curtsying fools,
Dancing in a living hell,
We think of you, in your tiny cell,
Still unbowed, still full of grace,
Raising your maskless face
To watch a small bird fly
Free across a stillblue sky.

And although our facile arts
Can no longer comfort us,
This treasonous vision does,
Of you, the heroine in our hearts.

Com. Ganpat Bhise writes to Sudhir Dhawale

Com. Ganpat Bhise writes to Sudhir Dhawale

Dalit Camera / by by Com. Ganpat Bhise

A letter sent on May 23, 2021 to poet Sudhir Dhawale, editor of the “Vidrohi”, who has been in prison in Taloja jail. Five revolutionaries including Sudhir were arrested today three years back, initiating the beginnings of BK-16 case, as we know it today.

Dear Sudhir,
Jai Bhim!
Lal Salaam!After you were jailed, there has not been much uprising in Maharashtra and the rest of the country. I don’t think many others have suffered much except some of us who have been close to you.
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Bombay HC Faults Lawyer’s Article Critical of Judiciary in Stan Swamy’s Bail Case

Bombay HC Faults Lawyer’s Article Critical of Judiciary in Stan Swamy’s Bail Case

Bombay HC Faults Lawyer’s Article Critical of Judiciary in Stan Swamy’s Bail Case

04/06/2021

The Wire / by The Wire Staff

The article by one of the lawyers appearing for Hany Babu, another accused in the Bhima-Koregaon case, severely criticised the Bombay high court for refusing to grant bail to Stan Swamy.
The Bombay high court on Thursday, June 3, took exception to a lawyer writing an opinion piece in a newspaper criticising the handling of the bail plea of Father Stan Swamy by the court, and instead asked lawyers to repose faith in the judiciary.
A bench headed by Justice S.S. Shinde, while hearing Hany Babu’s interim medical bail plea in relation to the Bhima-Koregaon case, instructed lawyers not to write opinion pieces in cases in which they appear. Both Hany Babu and Stan Swamy are undertrials in the case.
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‘Keep Faith In Us’: Bombay High Court Takes Objection To Lawyer’s Article Criticizing Handling Of Stan Swamy Bail Case

04/06/2021

Live Law / by Sharmeen Hakim

The Bombay High Court, while hearing a plea for interim medical bail for DU Associate Professor Hany Babu, took an exception to a recent editorial written by a lawyer criticizing the Court’s handling of the bail plea of octegenarian Father Stan Swamy. Both Hany Babu and Stan Swamy are undertrials in the Bhima Koregaon case.
The court witnessed dramatic scenes on Thursday after Justice SS Shinde, heading the division bench exchanged words with Advocate Yug Mohit Chaudhry regarding the editorial written by his junior.
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Stan Swamy, The Majesty Of Law And The Tenets Of Justice

Stan Swamy, The Majesty Of Law And The Tenets Of Justice


Drawing by Arun Ferreira

Outlook / by Puneet Nicholas Yadav

At 84 years of age, Stan Swamy is the oldest among the 16 accused in the Bhima Koregaon case and, arguably, the oldest prison inmate across the country facing non-bailable charges under the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
Eight months after he was arrested and locked up in Navi Mumbai’s Taloja Jail, Stan Swamy – octogenarian Jesuit priest, tribal rights activist, public intellectual, Parkinson’s patient; and in the eyes of the BJP-led central government, an enemy of the State – is now undergoing treatment at Mumbai’s Holy Family Hospital for Covid.
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Video: IN PRISON FOR DREAMING OF EQUALITY?

Video: IN PRISON FOR DREAMING OF EQUALITY?


hindi + en | 1h56min | 2021

By United Against Hate / PUCL

Speakers: Kavita Srivastava, Nivedita Menon, Kavita Krishnan, Meera Sanghamitra, Sabika Naqvi, Lara Jesani; Moderated by Banojyotsna Lahiri.

The Month of May marks one year of arrest of equal citizenship activists Natasha Narwal and Devangana Kalita and 1000 days of wrongful incarceration of Human Rights lawyer Sudha Bhardwaj. All three are fearless voices of dissent, dreamers of a equitable and just tomorrow.
Join this session honouring all the brave and unapologetic women who refuse to be silenced despite the continuous intimidation by this fascist regime and resist the institutionalized discrimination against women.
Watch @ PUCL FB page

German Human Rights Commissioner Says Stan Swamy Should Be Released

German Human Rights Commissioner Says Stan Swamy Should Be Released

The Wire / by The Wire Staff

“Given his age and health condition, I urgently appeal to the relevant authorities to consider his release on humanitarian grounds!” Bärbel Kofler has said.
Bärbel Kofler, the German Commissioner for Human Rights Policy and Humanitarian Assistance, has expressed concern about the continued incarceration of Adivasi rights activist and Jesuit priest Father Stan Swamy and said that he should be released on humanitarian grounds.
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