SACW | Dec. 16-18, 2006
Harsh Kapoor
aiindex at mnet.fr
Sun Dec 17 20:49:55 CST 2006
South Asia Citizens Wire | December 16-18, 2006 | Dispatch No. 2334 - Year 8
[1] Roots of Conflict in Sri Lanka - Kasim
Tirmizey interviews Jonathan Spencer
[2] Stop the Taliban takeover of Pakistan (Khalid Hasan)
[3] Bangladesh: Elite Force Tortures, Kills Detainees (Human Rights Watch)
[4] India - Victims of Meerut's Hashimpura
Killings: Brutalised, but not broken (Harsh
Mander)
[5] India: Furore Over Rajasthan's 'saffron' syllabus (ndtv)
[6] India: Re-investigate Malegaon Bomb Blasts (Subhash Gatade)
[7] Pakistan: 'Moral police' going out of their
way to harass those going out (Hina Farooq)
[8] Returning Indian painter to face fury of Hindus (Jo Johnson)
[9] Upcoming Events:
(i) March For A Free And Secular Goa (Panjim, December 19, 2006)
(ii) Public Hearing - Human Rights And the Rule
of Law: Mob Terror, state terror and Bomb Terror
(New Delhi, December 21-22, 2006)
____
[1]
ZNet - December 12, 2006
ROOTS OF CONFLICT IN SRI LANKA
Kasim Tirmizey interviews Jonathan Spencer
In 2006, Sri Lanka was witness to the worst
violence between the government of Sri Lanka and
the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam since a
ceasefire was signed between the two groups in
2002.
Jonathan Spencer is the Professor of the
Anthropology of South Asia at the University of
Edinburgh. He has written A Sinhala Village in a
Time of Trouble: Politics and Change in Rural Sri
Lanka and Sri Lanka: History and the Roots of
Conflict. I spoke with him in September of 2006
about the roots of the conflict in Sri Lanka.
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=32&ItemID=11623
______
[2]
Kashmir Times
COLUMN
STOP THE TALIBAN TAKEOVER OF PAKISTAN
By Khalid Hasan
The passage of the Hisbah bill in the NWFP
Assembly for the second time is a slap in the
face of not only the Musharraf government and the
Supreme Court of Pakistan, which had declared the
first bill ultra vires of the constitution, but
the vast majority of the people of Pakistan who
abhor the Mullah's Islam which is a travesty of
Islam's inner spirit of rationalism, decency and
tolerance. Iqbal, who himself was the victim of a
fatwa of apostasy by no less a divine than the
Khateeb of the Badshahi Mosque in Lahore, said it
best: Deen-e-mullah fi-sabeel Allah fasad (The
mullah's religion is to cause trouble in the name
of God). Ghalib, whose sense of humour always
flowered with such subjects, wrote in a Persian
couplet that it was just as well the Shari'a had
forbidden drink, otherwise one would have had to
drink in the company of mullahs.
The Hisbah bill, which will create a parallel
system of justice to the one prevailing in the
rest of Pakistan, will also bring into being a
competing administration. After what the Taliban
did to the world, first by their own harsh and
primitive rule and then by harbouring Osama bin
Laden and letting him plan and execute terrorist
attacks around the world, how can anyone in his
right mind even think of replicating their rule
and practices, which is what the Hisbah bill will
do. Hopefully, it will be killed as the first one
was. Those who brought the MMA's political power
did a great disservice to both Pakistan and
Islam. They must be made to answer for what they
did. What they have sown are the seeds of the
country's destruction and, for that reason, the
mullahs, both armed and political, have to be
expelled from the body politic.
Everyone must be reminded of what the Taliban and
their rule were like. One way of doing that is to
look through a 1998 report - The Taliban's War on
Women - issued by Physicians for Human Rights, a
much respected group that shared the 1997 Nobel
Peace Prize for its campaign to ban landmines. In
a foreword, Abdullahi A An-Naim, a Sudanese
professor of law, wrote, 'Muslims everywhere must
vehemently challenge and rebut any alleged
Islamic justification for any violations of human
rights and humanitarian law. Muslims and their
governments must strongly condemn human rights
violations wherever they occur and whoever
commits them, and not only when speaking out is
convenient or politically expedient. Most of the
policies or practices of the Taliban government
documented in this report have no Islamic
justification whatsoever.' But while all Muslim
governments remained silent while the Taliban
ravaged the country and committed atrocities on
fellow Afghans, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia
remained their two support basis. The report
said, 'In particular, those governments that
support the Taliban, notably Pakistan, should be
publicly called upon to end their support for the
regime, and an effective arms embargo should be
established.'
The report said that the manner in which the
human rights of women had been violated by the
Taliban regime was 'unparalleled in recent
history.' What they had done was 'an affront to
the dignity and worth of Afghan women and
humanity as a whole.' The Taliban were rustic
youths recruited by the ISI from Afghan refugee
camps in Pakistan and madassas. On assuming
control of most of Afghanistan, they 'targeted
women for extreme repression and punished them
brutally for infractions.' According to the
report, 'No other regime in the world has
methodically and violently forced half of its
population into virtual house arrest, prohibiting
them on pain of punishment from showing their
faces, seeking medical care without a male escort
or attending school.'
The Taliban took control of Kabul on 26
September, 1996 and issued edicts forbidding
women to work outside the home, attend school, or
to leave their homes unless accompanied by a
husband, father, brother or son. In public, they
were to be covered in a head to toe burqa with
only a mesh opening to see and breathe through.
Women were not permitted to wear white - the
colour of the Taliban flag - socks or white shoes
or shoes that made noise while they were walking.
Houses and buildings in public view were ordered
to have their windows painted over if females
were present in them. Men and women were
segregated in different hospitals. In 1997, all
Kabul hospitals were ordered to suspend medical
services to the city's half million women at all
but one poorly equipped hospital for women.
Female hospital staff, including doctors and
nurses, were banned from working in the city's 22
hospitals. The one place where women could seek
treatment had only 35 beds and no clean water,
electricity, surgical equipment, X-ray machines,
suction or oxygen.
One of the first Taliban edicts was prohibiting
girls and women from attending school. In 1998,
they ordered the closing down of more than 100
privately-funded schools. New rules were issued
that limited education to girls up to the ages of
eight and restricted it to the Quran. Kabul
became a city of women beggars. These beggars had
once been teachers and nurses who, said the
report, were now 'moving in the streets like
ghosts under their all enveloping burqas, selling
every possession and begging so as to feed their
children.' The report said, 'It is difficult to
find another government or would-be government in
the world that has deliberately created such
poverty by arbitrarily depriving half the
population under its control of jobs, schooling,
mobility and healthcare.' Those in Pakistan who
claim to this day that the Taliban brought peace
to Afghanistan should read just this one, single
line. 'The 'peace' imposed on that portion of the
country under Taliban rule is the peace of the
burqa, the quiet of women and girls cowering in
their homes, and the silence of the citizenry
terrorised by the Taliban's violent and arbitrary
application of their version of the Shari'a law.'
Executions, including those of women, were done
in the football stadium and people were forced to
come, watch and raise slogans of Allah-au-Akbar.
The burqa which some women are now insisting upon
wearing in Europe, is a health hazard, the report
said. A female pediatrician told the authors of
the report, "My activities are restricted.
Walking with the burqa is difficult; it has so
many health hazards. You can't see well and there
is a risk of falling or getting hit by a car.
Also for women with asthma or hypertension,
wearing a burqa is very unhealthy." One doctor
said that the burqa may cause eye problems and
poor vision, poor hearing, skin rash, headaches,
increased cardiac problems and asthma, itching of
the scalp, hair loss and depression. Other
Taliban edicts make horrifying reading. Music was
entirely banned. Music shops were closed down.
Growing a beard became compulsory, as did its
length, which was that of a clenched fist. Five
prayers became compulsory. Keeping of pigeons and
other birds was forbidden. While the Taliban were
heavily into the narco trade, the use of drugs
and opiates was prohibited. Kite flying was
banned. Pictures of the human form or face were
banned from public display and even in hotels.
People with long hair were to be arrested and
shaved. Perhaps the Taliban had a sense of humour
because this provision of the law added, 'The
criminal has to pay the barber.' Women were
disallowed from washing clothes in water streams.
Music and dancing was forbidden at wedding
parties. Tailors were disallowed from taking
measurements of women customers. Sorcery was
prohibited. Homosexuals were buried alive with
walls built around them.
But back to Pakistan. Gen Musharraf and the PPP
deserve to be complimented on the women's rights
bill. One hopes the General realises that if
allowed to have its way, the Hisbah bill will
push Pakistan into a hell hole we may not come
out from.
The time to act is now. General, dump the MMA.
*(Khalid Hasan is a senior Pakistani
journalist-columnist hailing from Jammu and
Kashmir based in Washington).
-(Courtesy: The Friday Times)
_____
[3]
Human Rights Watch - Press Release
BANGLADESH: ELITE FORCE TORTURES, KILLS DETAINEES
Ex-Ruling Party May Use Rapid Action Battalion for Elections
(New York, December 14, 2006) - Bangladesh's
elite anti-crime and anti-terrorism security
force is responsible for widespread torture and
killing more than 350 suspects in custody, Human
Rights Watch said in a report released today.
Human Rights Watch warned that the former ruling
party could use the abusive force for political
purposes prior to elections slated for January
23, 2007.
" Bangladesh's Rapid Action Battalion has become a government death squad. "
Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
The 79-page report, "Judge, Jury, and
Executioner: Torture and Extrajudicial Killings
by Bangladesh's Elite Security Force," describes
how the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), established
in 2004 to stop spiraling crime, has made a
practice of killing criminal suspects in
detention.
[. . .]
The report urged Bangladesh's international
donors not to provide material or financial
support to RAB so long as it persists in using
torture and extrajudicial killings. The United
Nations should thoroughly review the
participation in peacekeeping operations of all
Bangladeshi soldiers and police who have worked
in RAB to ensure that they have not been
responsible for ordering or tolerating serious
violations of human rights.
[The report is available at:
http://hrw.org/reports/2006/bangladesh1206/ ]
_____
[4]
HindustanTimes.com
December 17, 2006
BRUTALISED, BUT NOT BROKEN
by Harsh Mander
The police bullet pierced through his shoulder,
stunning him with pain. If it had entered his
body just a few inches lower, he would have died,
like the forty other young men that the
constables had bundled into the truck with him.
They took him for dead, throwing him into the
canal. Zulfikar was then 17 years old.
A few hours earlier, constables of the Provincial
Armed Constabulary (PAC) had surrounded
Hashimpura, a working class and predominantly
Muslim colony of factory workers and weavers in
Meerut. It was the evening of May 22, 1987, and
the city was still smouldering with the fires of
more than a month of embittered and brutal
rioting, that had left many slain by police
bullets and burning alive, hundreds of homes,
factories, shops and vehicles gutted, and people
of both communities convulsed with sullen hate
and anger.
The PAC forced all the residents of Hashimpura
out of their homes onto the road, and searched
their homes, randomly smashing their furniture
and valuables. It was the sacred month of Ramzan,
and most were still observing the ritual fasting
as they tensely cowered for hours outside their
homes. Almost all the able-bodied men, totalling
324 according to official records, all Muslim,
were arrested and crowded into police trucks.
They were first driven to police lock-ups, where
they were beaten with police batons. They were
then shifted to jails, where they were attacked
by prisoners, leaving five dead.
In Hashimpura, after the strong able-bodied men
were arrested and driven away, nearly 50 among
the teenaged and old men who remained behind were
then rounded up by the PAC constables into a
yellow truck. Many of their loved ones wailed as
they were driven away. Yet, none dreamed that
this would be the last time that they would see
most of them alive.
Zulfikar and others thought that they too would
be driven to the police station. They panicked
when the truck instead began to drive them out of
the city; they shouted hopelessly but there were
none to heed their cries in the shrouds of
curfew. The truck rumbled to a halt more than an
hour later near the banks of the Upper Ganga
Canal in Muradnagar, Ghaziabad. By then, the sun
had set. The terrified men packed in the truck
still did not know what the men in khaki planned
for them.
The man nearest the edge was first pulled down,
and the sound of rifle-fire echoed through the
uneasy silence; he fell, and his body was dragged
to the canal and thrown in. A second man was then
pulled down, and met the same fate. Zulfikar was
the third. The bullet passed through his
shoulder; he too collapsed, but was alive. He
held his breath, and the constables took him for
dead, and flung him also into the canal. He
floated briefly, but soon found himself tangled
in some weeds, which he grabbed and silently
waited with intense foreboding, blood flowing
from his bullet wound into the water.
By then, the men in the truck comprehended the
terrible truth of what was happening, and they
raised a great uproar. The constables panicked,
and changed track. They mounted the truck and
opened fire blindly, killing at least half the
men there. They dragged out the bodies and threw
them into the canal. The remaining men fell
silent in cold terror, recalling their God and
those they loved, certain now that they would not
escape alive.
Zulfikar listened as the truck finally drove
away. He came to know later that they then drove
to the Hindon Canal, and completed the massacre
of the remaining men. Of the nearly 50 men who
the PAC picked up, only six survived. A policeman
later testified to seeing the blood-stained PAC
truck enter the premises of the camp of the PAC.
Zulkifar finally pulled himself out of the canal
an hour later, and hid in a urinal. He had to
continue his fast amid the stench of urine and
his throbbing shoulder the next 24 hours, until
he felt it was safe to slink to the home of a
relative the next night. Days later, he took a
bus to the home of Syed Shahabuddin, MP, in
Delhi, and together they broke the story of the
massacre in a press conference to a (briefly)
outraged world.
Meanwhile, many bodies were found floating in the
canal. The Superintendent of Police, Ghaziabad,
VN Rai, insisted on filing police complaints,
even though the top political and police
leadership reportedly wanted to suppress the
story for fear of a rebellion in the forces. In
1988, the state government directed the Crime
Branch Central Investigation Department (CBCID)
to investigate, but its report, submitted six
years later in 1994, was never made public, and
no charges were initially framed.
However, the survivors and members of the
families of those killed moved the Supreme Court
in 1995 to make the report public and to
prosecute those indicted in it. The court refused
to intervene, and instead asked the petitioners
to approach the High Court. The case remains
unresolved in the High Court, but the state
government finally bowed to pressure in 1996 by
filing criminal chargesheets against 19 PAC
personnel. Not a single senior official is
included in the chargesheet. Even the 19 of the
accused from the lower ranks of the PAC were not
arrested, despite 23 non-bailable arrest
warrants. They were in active service, but the
government pleaded that they were 'absconding'
throughout!
Ultimately, rights activist Iqbal Ansari and
relatives of those slaughtered applied to the
Supreme Court to transfer the case, in the
interests of justice, from Uttar Pradesh to
Delhi, which it ordered in September 2002. More
years were allowed to pass over the wrangle of
which government should appoint the special
public prosecutor. The case continued to be
adjourned on technical grounds, enabled by a
reluctant public prosecutor appointed by the
Uttar Pradesh government. Human rights lawyers
Vrinda Grover and Rebecca John took up the reins
as their advocates.
It was finally in May 2006, 19 years almost to
the day after the massacre, that charges were
finally framed against the accused. Three of the
accused have died, the remaining 16 appear in
every hearing in the cramped untidy Tis Hazari
courtroom and listen tensely to the statements of
the survivors - but continue in active service. A
large number of residents of Hashimpura crowd the
courtroom. All working class people, many widowed
and aged, unsupported by any organisation, gather
money from their own savings for travel for every
court hearing, only to give wordless strength to
each other as they speak out their harrowing
truths in court.
Zulfikar, now 36, knows that the battle in the
courts will be arduous. Yet, he still longs above
all for justice. "Those who did this zulm must be
punished. We do not want our children to see such
a day again. It is for this that we fight." Some
fear that they may still lose the case, but their
lawyer Vrinda Grover counters, "The survivors and
their families have already won. By their brave
resolute epic fight. By bringing 16 PAC men to
court every hearing. If the case is dismissed, it
is the country that will lose. But not them. They
have already won."
Harsh Mander is the convenor of Aman Biradari, a
people's campaign for secularism, peace and
justice.
_____
[5]
ndtv.com
http://www.ndtv.com/morenews/showmorestory.asp?category=National&slug=Furore+over+Rajasthan's+'saffron'+syllabus&id=97824
FURORE OVER RAJASTHAN'S 'SAFFRON' SYLLABUS
NDTV Correspondent
Tuesday, December 12, 2006 (Jaipur):
Politics over the school curriculum is once again
creating a huge controversy in Rajasthan.
The recently revised social studies and political
science textbooks for class 10 and 12 students in
the Rajasthan board read more like the manifesto
of the RSS and the BJP.
A chapter on terrorism states:
* The Jammu and Kashmir government works
under the pressure of terrorists, many of the
political leaders in the state are hand and glove
with terrorists
* Article 370 should be abolished to prevent
terrorism and the armed forces be given sweeping
powers to wipe out terrorism
On Rajasthan, the textbook says that certain
minority groups living in the border districts of
Barmer and Jaislamer, who have relatives in
Pakistan are engaged in anti national activities,
should be monitored carefully.
On Mahatma Gandhi, the political science textbook
says that at first he was a supporter of the
British. It was only later that he turned against
the empire.
Educationists, quite clearly, are not amused by the controversial syllabus.
"It ignores the complexity of an average
Rajasthani classroom, it does not address Muslim
and Christian children," said Apoorva Nand,
Reader, Delhi University.
Caught on the backfoot, the BJP government has
now promised to look into the matter.
_____
[6]
Alternative India Index
15 December 2006
RE-INVESTIGATE MALEGAON BOMB BLASTS
by Subhash Gatade
New Delhi : In the face of Maharashtra police's
attempts to implicate Muslim youths in last
September's Malegaon blasts in a mosque and a
Muslim graveyard which claimed 38 lives, Muslims
of Malegaon staged an unusual protest on 10
November, Friday, in the Muslim majority town
known for its powerloom industry. Protesters
donned same kind of hoods which police places on
the heads of arrested criminals. Protesters also
wore black bands around their arms in a show of
protest against official attempts to portray the
victims as terrorists.
The protest was organised after the Friday
prayers. The protesters staged a sit-in outside
the Bara Qabristan and Hamidia mosque, the sites
of the blasts on 8 September. They also formed a
long human chain near the mosque. ( The Milli
Gazette, 1-15 December 2006)
I. It was rather an unusual type of protest on
the streets of Malegaon.But hardly anyone outside
the town could even know about it.Neither any of
those 'breaking news channels' nor any of those
citizen journos, deemed it necessary to at least
report the incident.
The venue for the sit-ins were those very spots
which had witnessed bomb blasts on 8 th September
- namely Bara Kabristan and Hamidia mosque- where
around fourty innocent people breathed their last
and hundreds of people got injured.It was the
local populace's own way of expressing anger over
official attemts to portray victims as terrorists.
Ofcourse, the unique sit-in was part of the
ongoing protest campaign by the townspeople. In
fact, the city observed a complete bandh on the
14 th November as part of its protest against the
attitude of the police and authorities. It was a
day when Chief Minister of Maharashtra Mr
Vilasrao Deshmukh, came to visit the town to lay
the foundation stone of a hospital. People very
well knew that if the hospital would have come up
as scheduled, many innocent lives could have been
saved on that fateful day. If the aftermath of
the bomb blasts on Shab-e-Barat the town had
witnessed many communal harmony rallies, today
one notices perceptible change in the ambience.If
earlier the anger of the Muslim community was
directed against the unknown terrorists who had
conspired to kill innocents, today the
communalised police machinery has also become an
important target of the people's ire.
Any neutral observer can see that Malegaon - a
predominantly a Muslim populated town - which had
once carved out a niche for itself because of its
powerloom industry, is today seething with anger.
A town and its people which had decisively
defeated the gameplan of the fanatics - who had
planned that bomb blasts on the day of the
Shab-e-Barat would definitely provoke a communal
conflagaration - are today finding that they have
been cheated by the ruling elite. People are
posing a question which is not easy to answer.
What happened to the promise of an impartial
enquiry into the bomb blasts which saw deaths of
around 40 innocents and injuries to hundreds ?
People narrate instances where one finds that the
partisan police machinery in connivance with a
section of the bureaucracy is engaged in making
'dreaded terrorists' out of 'innocents' and going
soft on the communal organisations from the
majority Hindu community.
[. . .]
[FULL TEXT AT: http://membres.lycos.fr/sacw/article.php3?id_article=40 ]
_____
[7]
Daily Times
November 29, 2006
'MORAL POLICE' GOING OUT OF THEIR WAY TO HARASS THOSE GOING OUT
By Hina Farooq
LAHORE: Police harassment of couples sitting in
parks and public places has become routine and
administrative and parking staff have joined 'law
enforcers' in making money in the name of
morality.
Not only are unmarried couples threatened with
arrest for bribes, married couples are also
harassed by policemen misusing authority.
Parks in Defence Housing Authority (DHA) are also
the hub of such incidents. Although policemen say
they do not bother couples sitting in public
places unless involved in what they call "immoral
activities", several couples told Daily Times
that park officials misbehaved with them and
asked for bribes lest they be arrested for
immorality - especially if they sat in secluded
areas.
Talking to Daily Times, Areeba and Fawad said
they were sitting in a park in Defence one
evening when two people took them to a police
station by force and asked them to pay Rs 3,000
or call their parents for bail. The couple said
they were sitting on a bench and had done nothing
wrong.
Times were changing and societies were becoming
freer, they said, but Pakistanis' way of thinking
was the same no matter how educated they were.
Lahore was a city of peace and tranquillity and
Sufi saints had promoted love and harmony, Fawad
said, "and this has been highlighted in so many
conferences and seminars". "But they do not leave
young people alone for a few moments of peace."
He said young people did not meet each other for
immoral reasons, but interacted to discuss life
and society. "Everybody should be free to enjoy
Lahore's greenery, flowers, songbirds and the
fresh lovely colours of nature," he said.
In another incident, Saad and his cousin were
having a chat in the parking area of a public
park when a police vehicle arrived. Policemen
asked the couple to get out of the car and
slapped the girl asking how much she charged for
a night, according to Saad.
"They took us to the police station and asked us
to call our parents," Saad said, adding that he
had to pay Rs 4,000 to be allowed to leave.
Huma and Asad, a newly wed couple travelling in a
rickshaw, were stopped near the National Hospital
in the DHA by a police vehicle. Huma was ill and
had put her head in Asad's lap. Policemen refused
to allow them to go until they proved their
identity and showed proof of their marriage, or
paid for their tea.
The couple paid them Rs 6,000 to be allowed to go
home, where they showed the police their marriage
certificate.
ASP Liaqat of Defence police station said the
government had directed the police not to charge
young couples sitting or roaming together. More
than four cases were registered under section 294
of the PPC every day earlier, he said.
Provincial legislator Uzma Bukhari denounced
harassment of couples, saying it was not possible
for couples to keep marriage certificates with
them all the time. She said the passage of
Women's Protection Bill (WPB) could bring about a
change in society.
_____
[8]
The Financial Times
December 12 2006 18:38 | Last updated: December 12 2006 18:38
RETURNING INDIAN PAINTER TO FACE FURY OF HINDUS
By Jo Johnson in New Delhi
India's most celebrated living artist - and bete
noire of Hindu nationalists - will next month
return from voluntary exile to face obscenity
charges in a case that has divided the country.
Much of liberal India is appalled at the prospect
of the criminal prosecution of M.F. Husain, a
frail 91-year-old. But Hindu fundamentalist
groups are adamant that the Muslim painter must
answer for "insulting" depictions of deities.
"Husain is a perfect example of a gentle man of
love and creativity becoming a target for
religious football," said Neville Tuli, chairman
of Osian's, a Mumbai auction house that has sold
some of his massive works.
The persecution of one of the most visible
symbols of secular India has embarrassed the
coalition government led by the Congress party,
which sees itself as the traditional defender of
religious minorities against discrimination at
the hands of the Hindu majority.
The white-haired painter left India in March to
live what he has described as the life of an
"international gypsy". Interviewed recently in
Dubai by an Indian newspaper, Mr Husain confessed
to being "extremely homesick" for Mumbai.
"I long to walk through the streets of Grant Road
and Byculla where I have spent some of the best
years of my life," said Mr Husain, who has been
moving between London, Dubai, Melbourne and New
York.
Works by the star of the Progressive Artists'
Group have been commanding seven-figure sums. A
Husain sold last year for $2m (£1.02m) in a
private sale in London, trumping the $1.58m
fetched weeks earlier by his Mumbai contemporary,
Tyeb Mehta, at Christie's in New York.
In a ruling on December 4, the Supreme Court
described the cases against Mr Husain as "proper
and just" and ordered four separate cases filed
in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat states
to be consolidated into a single trial in New
Delhi.
All four cases had been brought by individuals
under public interest provisions and claimed that
the artist's work was "obscene", breached the
Indian penal code and created "enmity between
different religious groups". They focused on one
painting, "Bharat Mata", portraying Mother India
as a naked woman. It is the latest of many Husain
paintings over the years to have provoked anger
by showing revered Hindu female deities in the
nude.
"This is a work of art; he's just expressed
himself," said Bina Madhavan, an advocate
representing Mr Husain.
In May an exhibition of Mr Husain's work at
London's Asia House closed after canvases were
vandalised.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006
_____
[9] UPCOMING EVENTS
(i)
MUKTIDIN THOUGHTS: MARCH FOR A FREE AND SECULAR GOA
December 19 -- a glorious day in the history of
the Indian subcontinent, a day when colonialism
finally came to an end and paved the path for
democracy in the tiny land of Goa. The political
independence of Goa was a culmination of the
popular aspirations of the Goan people's long
battle for freedom; it was a long-awaited dawn.
But did the dawn break into a new day? Where the
diverse peoples that make up Goa could see a ray
of hope? Where people irrespective of sex, caste,
creed, religion, sexual orientation, language,
used script, community, would feel liberated from
all the bonds that bind them? Where we would feel
liberated enough to be involved in the process of
building up a Goa of OUR dreams?
We, the people in Goa, have been toiling long and
hard even as we have also been singing and
dancing. We have traditionally lived a peaceful
and harmonious life sharing our small joys and
sorrows. We have survived. But at times under
pressures that are getting more and more acute.
Pressures on our land, water, natural resources,
pressures on our lifestyles, pressures of
intolerance, pressures of power. Pressures of
populist politics that only knows the language of
vote-banks and of "divide and rule" that is not
different from the politics of colonialism that
we the people in Goa fought against.
Today the colonialists have a different garb.
Today it is powerful money-bags, many of them
multi-national, with active local agents in the
form of our own politicians, for whom again the
politics of 'divide and rule' is a central theme.
Communal forces are trying to break the unity of
the Goan people, and divide them along lines of
community and religion. If they do not divide and
rule, they will not be able to loot and plunder.
Because if we are united, we the people can stop
them. And not only stop them, but also build the
Goa of our dreams.
We still have a long and hard battle to achieve
the liberation that we aspired for. We are
hard-working. We have the capacity for hard work.
We have varied skills amongst us. We are each
differently abled. All the natural resources have
not been plundered yet, nor has our communal
harmony been irreparably damaged. We can all be
visionaries, and build on what we have to build a
free and secular Goa.
We can fight the forces that are dividing Goa, We
can fight the obstacles that prevent us from
building Goa as a land of peace and harmony. On
this liberation day of 2006, we can pledge to
take Goa into our hands collectively and
strengthen the economic, social and political
fabric of Goa in a just manner and celebrate its
rich and diverse culture-to move towards a
genuinely free and secular Goa.
Since the past few years, concerned citizens and
organizations in Goa have been coming together to
celebrate December 19, the anniversary of Goa's
liberation. Let us once again come together on
this, the 45th anniversary of Goa's liberation
and share our vision of justice, equality,
freedom and secularism in a festival-towards a
free and secular Goa.
Join the rally through the streets of Panjim,
starting from Azad Maidan at 9.30 am on December
19, 2006. Take an oath to build a Goa where
everybody's dreams have space. And then partake
of a cultural programme at Azad Maidan on
December 19. See the art exhibition at Menezes
Braganza Hall from December 17 afternoon to Dec
19, 2006.
Organised by the Citizens' Initiative for Communal Harmony.
Ramesh Gauns and Albertina Almeida, Co-Convenors. Contact
persons: Albertina Almeida 9326137682
albertina.almeida at gmail.com Ramesh Gauns 9270085105
ramguans at yahoo.co.in Vidyadhar Gadgil 2293766 vgadgil at gmail.com
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(ii)
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2006/12/public-hearing-human-rights-and-law-mob.html
INVITATION FOR MEETING
Citizens for Justice and Peace are a Citizens
group working with the victims of the Gujarat
Genocide of 2002 and SAHMAT wish to invite you to
be part of a Public Hearing on the plight of the
victims five years after the State sponsored
Genocide. Ghettoisation. The issue of women,
stories of hope and despair, the plight of
tribals in Gujarat needs especial focus given the
aggression experienced there. So also the model
of development and the plight of the agriculture
sector and the informal sector.
Social exclusion, ghettoisation and intimidation
to those victims who have the courage to fight
for justice is an every day story in the state of
Gujarat . Members of not just the Minority
Community but every right thinking, peace loving
and justice loving citizen of the state has been
intimidated into silence. The political
opposition is weak and scattered. Gujarat State
in 2006 December is an example of lived fascism.
The day long Public Hearing is scheduled for
Wednesday December 20 th in New Delhi from 11a.m
to 4 p.m at the Indian Social Institute, 10,
Institutional Area, Lodhi Road , New Delhi .
You personally and your organisation/institution
have mobilised significantly on the issue of the
Gujarat genocide. I have had the privilege of
interacting you all several times on the issue.
May we therefore urge on behalf of our
organisation that the you and your colleagues
attends this public hearing in full strength and
extends its support?
December 21-22, 2006
HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE RULE OF LAW: MOB TERROR, STATE TERROR AND BOMB TERROR
Friends, the CJP is also organising a two day
convention following this meet on Mob Violence,
State Violence-Bomb terror at which vibrant
groups from Karnataka, Orissa, Chhatisgarh and
Malegaon will participate. I enclose those
details too hoping that you all could join us
there, too.
We would be happy to write a formal letter to any
other persons at the Delhi University
Rajendra Prasad, MK Raina [SAHMAT]
Teesta Setalvad Secretary
Vijay Tendulkar President
I M Kadri Vice President
Arvind Krishnaswamy, Treasurer
Cyrus Guzder
Javed Anand
Alyque Padamsee
Javed Akhtar
Anil Dharkar
Ghulam Pheshimam
Nandan Maluste
Rahul Bose
Fr. Cedric Prakash
Human Rights And the Rule of Law:
Mob Terror, state terror and Bomb Terror
december 21-22, 2006
Organised by citizens for justice and peace, mumbai
COMMUNALISM COMBAT, MUMBAI
venue: Indian Social Institute, 10, Institutional Area,
Lodhi Road , New Delhi
December 21, 2006
DAY 1
Registration 9.30-10 a.m.
Plenary 10-11.15 a.m.
introduction : javed akhtar 10 mins
speakers:
Maulana Azhari 10 Mins
Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha 10 Mins
Aparna Bhatt 10 Mins
Vimal Thorat 10 Mins
Adv Wahane 10 Mins
Orissa/Karnataka 10 Mins
Teesta Setalvad 10 Mins
11.15-11.45 COFFEE BREAK
12 noon - 2 p.m.
Impunity of Mob Terror:
Case Study of Mangalore Violence, Karnataka
Four Speakers [20 minutes each]
Interactions with Other participants [45 MINS]
Duration: Two Hours
2-3.15 p.m. Lunch break
3.15 - 5.15 p.m.
DISCRIMINATORY JUSTICE AND DEVELOPMENT
malegaon case study
three speakers from malegaon [15 mins each]
THE NANDED INVESTIGATION [15 mins]
DISCRIMINATORY JUSTICE - godhra/ /mumbra//
malegaon / TEESTA SETALVAD [10 mins]
concluding remarks-rahul bose
5.15-5.45 p.m. Tea and discussions
December 22, 2006
DAY 2
9.30-11.30 a.m.
state terror:INCIDENCE & IMPUNITY
case study of chhatTisgarh
FOUR Speakers [20 mins each]
discussions with the participants [45 mins]
11.30-12 noon coffee break
12 noon - 1.30 p.m.
Mob Terror & STATE TERROR: INCIDENCE & IMPUNITY
CASE STUDY OF ORISSA
Four Speakers [20 mins each]
Interactions with Other Participants [45 mins]
1.30-3 p.m. lunch break
3.30 p.m.- 4.30 p.m.
valedictory session
conclusion
Cedric Prakash
media & Human Rights
javed anand
the way ahead: call for action
Kamal Mitra Chinoy
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
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