India: Human rights defender detained amid harassment of adivasi  indigenous rights activists

 

16 May 2007

Amnesty International is concerned over the apparently arbitrary arrest and detention of Dr. Binayak Sen, a human rights defender at Raipur in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh, and the police harassment of two other human rights defenders in the state.

 
Dr. Sen is the general secretary of the Chhattisgarh unit of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, one of India’s foremost human rights organizations, and has been instrumental in working on access to health for adivasi communities in the state. On 14 May 2007, he was detained at the Tarbahar Police Station, Bilaspur district, when he was returning from Kolkotta to Raipur. On May 15, he was lodged in Raipur prison. Police officials later sealed his residence and searched his clinic. His organic farm in a nearby village was also searched.
 
Reports say Dr. Sen has been detained under provisions of the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act, 2006 (CSPSA), and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967), which was amended in 2004 to include key aspects of the Prevention of Terrorist Activities Act (POTA), 2002. The POTA was repealed in 2004 following widespread criticism of abuse and human rights violations. The CSPSA and UAPA allow for arbitrary detention of persons suspected of belonging to an unlawful organization or participating in its activities or giving protection to any member of such an organization.
 
The PUCL has stated that, apart from Dr. Sen, two other PUCL members, Rashmi Dwivedi and Gautam Bandopadhyay, have been facing harassment and threats of arrest from the police.  The three have been actively protecting the rights of adivasis (indigenous communities) in the face of escalating violence in Chattisgarh between armed Maoists and Salwa Judum, an armed anti-Maoist campaign widely regarded as sponsored by the state government. They have been instrumental in bringing to light unlawful killings of advisis , sexual assault of adivasi women and disappearances of adivasi youth. The latest instance was the unlawful killing of seven adivisis in Santoshpur village in Bastar-Dantewada area on 31 March. While the state police had earlier claimed that those killed were Maoists, the state government recently ordered an inquiry into the killings after which the bodies have been exhumed last week.
 
The PUCL has stated that police allege that Dr. Sen had passed letters from Narayan Sanyal, a detained leader of the banned CPI (Maoist) who he had met in the Raipur jail last month, to Piyush Guha an alleged member of CPI (Maoist) under detention since 1 May. Dr. Sen, at the time of his arrest, told the media that this charge had no basis since the prison authorities were present during for all the meeting with Narayan Sanyal.

 
Amnesty International urges the Government of Chhattisgarh to immediately release Dr. Sen unless he is charged with a recognizable criminal offence and take urgent steps to end the harassment of the other human rights defenders in the state. 

 

 

BACKGROUND

Since 2005, Chhattisgarh, especially the Bastar-Dantewada area, has witnessed escalation of violence between the Maoists and the Salwa Judum. Civilians were routinely targeted on both sides, resulting in at least 300 deaths. The latest unlawful killings took place on 31

Also, 45,000 adivasis displaced from their homes have been forced to live in special camps putting them at increased risk of violence.

 

The Chhattisgarh state government claimed that it enacted the CSPSA to take action against the Maoists. Human rights organizations in India have criticised the CSPSA saying that it has several provisions similar to those in POTA. These include:

• violation of the principle of certainty in criminal law (including vague definition of membership and support to terrorist organisations);
• absence of pre-trial safeguards (including insufficient safeguards on arrest, the risk of torture, obstacles to confidential communications with counsel);
• virtual impossibility of obtaining bail as there is no provision for remedy of appeal or review of detention;
• threats to freedom of expression and
• threats to freedom of association.

 

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Joe Athialy
Campaigns and Communication Coordinator
Amnesty International India
www.amnesty.org.in

Email: jathialy@... / joeathialy@...