Condemn Chhattisgarh High Court’s Decision to Reject Dr. Binayak Sen’s Bail Application!

The Chhattisgarh High Court has today (Feb 10th, 2011) rejected the bail application of noted human rights activist Dr. Binayak Sen who was convicted to life imprisonment on December 24th 2010 on ‘sedition’ charges. AISA strongly condemns this verdict, which once more highlights the brutal face of state repression and the crackdown on dissenting voices.

Throughout the course of the farcical trial against Dr. Binayak Sen, Piyush Guha and Narayan Sanyal, it was amply evident that the Chhattisgarh government had absolutely no credible evidence to back its demand for punishment on ‘sedition’ charges. Even then, and despite the fact that the Chhattisgarh government had clearly tried to plant false evidences against all of three accused, the Raipur Sessions Court convicted them. And now, the High Court has also upheld this outrageous judgment.

It is a known fact that Dr. Binayak Sen is one of the most vocal critics of the Salwa Judum military campaign of the Chhattisgarh government. Today, all those who have criticized the Chhattisgarh government’s policies of forcibly displacing people from their land and livelihoods to make way for corporates – whether is Kartam Joga, Kopa Kunjam or thousands of other languishing in jails in Chhattisgarh – find themselves being punished for their ‘crimes’. Not just in Chhattisgarh, but in Odisha, Jharkhand, West Bengal and elsewhere in the country, dissenting voices are being brutally suppressed.

AISA demands the immediate release of Dr. Binayak Sen and stands in solidarity with the wide-spread movement against this crackdown on democratic dissent.