New important text and new call from India in the next days! ICSPWI
Spett. ministro degli esteri, on.Luigi Di Maio
Pc.: spett. Presidente del Consiglio, on.Mario Draghi
pc.: spett. ministro dell’Interno, on.Luciana Lamorgese,
pc.: Spett. ministro della Cultura, on.Dario Franceschini,
Pc.: Spett. Presidente del Senato, on. Maria Elisabetta Alberti Castellati
Pc.: spett. Presidente della Camera dei deputati, on.Roberto Fico
Oggetto: donne indiane prigioniere politiche
I address you, on. Luigi Di Maio, because you have just been to India and you could speak with the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Damodardas Modi. However, I hope that all the concerned authorities can take an interest in the problem. I recently participated in a conference in Milan which talked about the many women who are political prisoners in India, where a fierce and widespread repression is carried out to impose economic interests at the expense of thr right to life of the Adivasi indigenous peoples and Dalit caste.
In recent years, especially in 2021, the extermination policy of female prisoners and political prisoners intensificated. Repression and imprisonment multiplied, as well as the reports about sexual assaults and violence against female prisoners. A real extermination is taking place in India under the silence of the media and with the complicity of all countries, including Italy.
Big Indian and transnational corporations, supported by the central government, wage war on the Adivasi populations, through military and paramilitary forces, to force them to abandon their homeland and build there devastating mines and factories.
The most affected by this repression are above all women, who fight in the front line against class and caste injustice, against discrimination and sexual violence, against racist laws and ethnic cleansing, against the militarization of villages, privatization and the exploitation of natural resources by multinationals to which the government sells off not only the territory, but also the Adivasi people who live there, forcing them to abandon their ancestral lands.
This repression is particularly raging against women, combining the violence of police and army guns with rapes and sexual torture, used as weapons of war.
In the last decade, 477 women have died in the prison. Today thousands of women are languishing in prisons, suffering in human conditions, framed in false cases, raped and tortured by police officers. Police mounted a huge number of false cases to hit the women who had been active in the movement to defend natural in all the states of the Indian subcontinent. Social activists like Soni Sori and Sudha Bharadwaj, forest rights activists like Sukalo Gond, Rajkumari, Kismatiya, women from Narmada Bachao, Andeolan women in Kudankulam, Adivasi women, cultural activists like Sheetal Sathe are among the many who continue to be persecuted daily by the Indian government because they continue struggling for the survival of the marginalized Adivasis and Dalit caste communities.
In addition to physical and sexual violence, women in prison are systematically discriminated against compared to men in terms of access to education and health care, the food and their specific health and hygiene needs related to the menstrual cycle, pregnancy, nutrition of childern. In fact, many women live in prison with their children, often conceived following the rapes they suffered in custody. (see “Women in Resistance, Women in Prison”. Delhi, 01/18/19: https://cjp.org.in/women-prisoners-recount-jail-horror-stories/).
I am confident that you, Hon. Luigi Di Maio, and all the addressed authorities may intervene in the manner you feel most appropriate and effective.
Best regards
Amalia Navoni, former councilor of zone 8, Milan.
PS: I also got this information from the “India prigione dei popoli, libertà per tutte le prigioniere politiche” https://femminismorivoluzionario.blogspot.com
Mumbai, May 9, 2022: Ninety per cent physically disabled and wheelchair-bound political prisoner Dr G.N. Saibaba was denied a plastic water bottle by the Nagpur Central Jail authorities on Monday, his advocate said.
Advocate Aakash Sarode told The Hindu, “I had taken permission from the jail authorities to get him a plastic bottle and only then I had got the bottle. No reason was given to me for refusing the bottle. Sai cannot carry a glass bottle because it is heavy and he has severe pain in shoulders and metal bottles are not allowed inside prison.”
He said Saibaba had been requesting the jail authorities to allow a plastic bottle for the last three weeks as it got very hot inside the ‘anda’ cell and the temperature in Nagpur was about 45 degrees.
Saibaba’s wife, Vasantha Kumari, said: “There is a small pot kept in the cell and Sai keeps requesting his helper, who is also a convict, to give him water. But at night when he feels thirsty he can’t wake his inmate and bother him for water. He has started getting unconscious because of the heat and lack of hydration inside the anda cell.”
As per protocol, when any item is sent to a prisoner, it goes to a two-star jailor. After he approves it, it goes to the senior jailor, who also needs to see the items and approve it. However, as per Mr. Saroda, “Without seeing the bottle, the jailor refused to accept it.”
Despite several calls and messages, Superintendent Anupkumar Kumre did not respond to The Hindu. However, some from his office, requesting anonymity, said, “We had given permission for a plain, transparent plastic bottle for Saibaba only on humanitarian grounds because he is handicapped. But what his lawyer got was a jar. Jars are not accepted in jail. If they send a simple plastic water bottle, we will take it.”
It is reported that Saibaba’s left hand is on the verge of failure and there is acute pain spreading in both his hands. He is plagued by pancreatitis, high blood pressure, cardiomyopathy, chronic back pain, immobility, and sleeplessness.
On March 7, 2017, the Sessions Court at Gadchiroli sentenced him to life imprisonment for alleged links with the Communist Party of India (Maoist) under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. His appeal against the judgment is pending before the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court for the last five years.
Ranchi District, May 5, 2022: The CPI (Maoist) has given a call to boycott the panchayat elections in Jharkhand state since ‘the condition of rural people remains the same despite several elections’.
CPI (Maoist) Southern Zonal Committee spokesperson Comrade Ashok on Wednesday said the real beneficiaries of the elections would be the ‘mukhiyas’, the ‘pramukhs’, and the zila parishad members who would get salary and huge funds in the name of development.
He urged the villagers to ask the candidates about the shortage of basic facilities in rural areas. “People should ask them why the provisions of the panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Area) act has not been implemented? Why is there a scarcity of drinking water? Why there are no primary health centers? Why irrigation facilities are poor? Why is the number of schools and teachers inadequate? And, why are the state forces setting up camps in villages without the permission of gram sabhas
Mumbai, May 5, 2022: The Bombay High Court on Wednesday again rejected a review application filed by Varavara Rao and two other political prisoners seeking a review of an earlier HC order which refused them default bail in the Elgar Parishad case.
The high court said it finds it difficult to hold there was any factual error in its earlier judgement and requires a review. “No case for exercise of review jurisdiction is made out. A point which was not urged is impermissible to be reviewed,” a division bench of Justices S S Shinde and N J Jamadar said, pronouncing the operative portion of the order.
Rao, Arun Ferreira and Vernon Gonsalves had challenged a December 1, 2021 order that granted default bail to lawyer Sudha Bharadwaj, a co-accused, but denied default bail to eight other accused persons. The high court had reserved the plea for order on March 22.
While Rao is currently out on medical bail, Ferreira and Gonsalves are still in jail. In their pleas, the three petitioners said the HC’s order was based on a “factual error,” as it failed to note that the lower court had rejected the default bail pleas filed by Bharadwaj, as well as them and two other co-accused, through a common order.
Hence, if the high court, in granting bail to Bharadwaj, set aside the lower court order, the others too were entitled to relief, they contended. The case, which is being handled by the NIA, pertains to the Elgar Parishad conclave held in Pune on December 31, 2017.
Kozhikode District, May 3, 2022: CPI (Maoist) posters have once again appeared in a public place in Chakkittapara, an upland Grama Panchayat in Kozhikode district. The posters were found to have been affixed on the premises of a bus waiting shed in ward five of the Panchayat, represented by its President K. Sunil. They bear warnings against quarrying and the policies of the State and Central governments.
In the posters, the Maoists have urged the local people to stand united against the granite quarry in the region, by not getting evicted and not selling their properties to the quarry mafia so as to protect the Western Ghats. They highlight the need to protect the agricultural land in Muthukad and the fragile ecosystem of the Western Ghats, alleging that the State and Central governments were carving out the land for vested interests.
The posters bear strong criticism against the ruling CPM, and term the Panchayat President a local version of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. Urging the public to realize the lies of the CPM, the Maoists claim that they are not scared of ‘Thunderbolt’, the special force of the State government to tackle the Maoists.
Similar posters had appeared in Chakkittapara at various locations from time to time, the last time being in September 2021. Meanwhile, the Panchayat President K. Sunil is under Thunderbolt protection round the clock due to the threat on his life from Maoists since August 2021.
Signatures:
Communist Party of India (Maoist)
Communist Party of Turkey/Marxist-Leninist
Construction Committee of the Maoist Communist Party of Galicia
Maoist Communist Party – Italy
Communist Party of Nepal (Revolutionary Maoist)
Communist (Maoist) Party of Afghanistan
Communist (Maoist) Party of Afghanistan – Shola Jawid
El Kadehines Party – Tunisia
Maoist Revolutionary League – Sri Lanka
Revolutionary Communists (RK) of Norway
Revolutionary Collective Britain (Formerly RVM)
Red Road Maoist Group of Iran
Communist Party of Switzerland (Red Fraction)
Poder Proletario Organización Partidaria MLM Colombia
Maoist Communist Party Turkey/North Kurdistan