Father Stan Swamy’s death while in the custody of the National Investigation Agency (NIA), has reignited the debate on the deplorable conditions in Taloja prison, and in prisons across the country, even as the Covid-19 pandemic rages on. 

“Fr Stan suffered painfully before he succumbed. His illness and death could have been avoided. Arguably, it was the inherently pathetic conditions at Taloja jail, followed by an obdurate web of deceit woven by the jail bureaucracy and the National Investigation Agency (NIA) that simply did not admit to this condition,” wrote Teesta Setalvad, soon after the news of his demise was made public. The moving tribute to the 84-year-old priest and human rights defender was one of the first to call out “The institutional murder of Father Stan Swamy”.

In October 2020 Setalvad, secretary, Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP) held a virtual conversation with, Human right activist and Jesuit priest, Father Cedric Prakash, and former principal of St Xavier’s College, Father Frazer Mascarenhas to discussed the arrest of the octogenarian human rights defender, who was the oldest arrested in the Bhima Koregaon Conspiracy case. CJP, along with many activists and citizens had condemned Fr. Stan Swamy’s arrest.

A death foretold

Months of suffering later, Father Stan Swamy passed away awaiting bail, and his death was announced in court by Dr. Aaron D’Souza of Holy Family Hospital, as the hearing was underway. The ailing human rights defender was put on ventilator support on Saturday, and suffered a cardiac arrest early morning on Monday July 5. The news stunned the court into a moment of silence, stated reports, and as soon as the news was made public, waves of shock, followed by grief were felt across the world among those who, like Stan, believe in human rights and dignity for all, and speak up for the oppressed.  

By evening, a memorial meeting was held online in the memory of Fr Stan Swamy, attended by over a thousand people, and his life was celebrated by his close friends, lawyers, activists, and members of the civil society. Each recalling his commitment to welfare of Adivasis, and rededicating themselves to the legacy of Fr. Stan Swamy: The Jharkhand Priest who made People his Religion.

On Monday, friends and family prepare to virtually attend Fr Stan’s funeral service in keeping with Covid-19 protocol. Fr Stan’s tragic death has also once again highlighted the condition of the remaining accused in the case, many of whom are also suffering ill health while behind bars. Friends and family members of those accused in the Bhima Koregaon conspiracy case, who remain behind bars, have issued a joint statement mourning the loss of Father Stan Swamy. They stated that were “deeply pained and shaken to the core” and that this was “not a natural death, but the institutional murder of a gentle soul, committed by an inhuman state. Having spent his life amongst the Adivasis in Jharkhand, fighting for their right to resources and lands, Father Stan did not deserve to die in this manner, far from his beloved Jharkhand, falsely imprisoned by a vindictive state.” The statement was issued by: Minal Gadling, Roy Wilson, Monali Raut, Koel Sen, Harshali Potdar, Sharad Gaikwad, Maaysha Singh, Y Ferreira, Susan Abraham, P Hemlatha, Sahba Husain, Rama Teltumbde, Jenny Rowena, Surekha Gorkhe, Pranali Parab, Rupali Jadhav and Fr. Joe Xavier. 

Father Stan inspired everyone 

Father Stan was the last of the 16, to be arrested, accused, and jailed, where the rest remain. Some tested positive for Covid-19, while others suffer from health issues which have only gotten worse in the jail circumstances. Varavara Rao was granted bail  for 6 months, in the Bhima Koregaon case where he was charged under Unlawful Activities (prevention) Act (UAPA), by the Bombay High Court bench of Justice Manish Pitale and Justice SS Shinde on February 22.  

According to the families and friends of the jailed activists who have come to be known as “BK-16”, Father Stan “despite his feeble health, he inspired everyone with the strength of his character and his unshakeable integrity. Even as his health degraded in the prison, his thoughts and prayers were always with his co-prisoners.” In his letters from jail, Fr Stan never complained but wrote about the other prisoners. “Listening to the life-narratives of the poor prisoners is my joy in Taloja. I see God in their pains and smiles,” he had written in one of his early letters, even as he waited for a sipper-tumbler that would help him drink water as his Parkinson’s Disease was at an advanced stage and his hands shook. Always placing others before himself, Fr Stan wrote, “Varavara Rao is very sick. Kindly, pray for him. “

The NIA had initially sought 20 days to respond to his straightforward application for a sipper mug to drink liquids because the octogenarian was unable to hold a cup or a glass as his hands shook due to Parkinson’s Disease. It was only after a month that he received the sipper for his basic needs.

The families of those still in jail stated that while remembering Fr Stan’s gentleness, humanity and compassion, they “cannot forget the immense injustice of his detention. It is unconscionable that someone of his age and ill-health was put in the prison in the first place, and that too, in the middle of an ongoing pandemic. The investigation against him was already complete by the time that he was arrested on October 8, 2020, and he was clearly not a flight risk. His arrest and subsequent detention in Taloja Prison in Navi Mumbai was already a death sentence pronounced against him.” 

They recalled that even the ‘documents’ found on the accused computers were “surreptitiously planted was firmly upheld through the stunning disclosures of Arsenal Consulting and Washington Post made public earlier this year, which clearly detailed the method through which incriminating documents had been remotely planted on the computers of the Bhima Koregaon accused using the Netwire malware,” adding that they were “outraged that Father Stan had to pay the price of this malicious fabrication of evidence with his life.”

Fr Stan’s health deteriorated in prison, but medical bail plea was denied

They stated how even after Fr Stan’s health deteriorated in prison, his medical bail plea was “mechanically turned down by the same blind, unfeeling and insensitive NIA court.” The NIA court had denied Fr Stan medical bail on March 22. In November 2020 year, the Jesuit Priest had moved court for bail citing medical grounds. The then 83-year-old Parkinson’s afflicted tribal rights activist suffered hearing loss in both ears and had an arm injury too.

“We cannot forget the heartbreaking speech of Father Stan before the High Court during his medical bail appeal, where he gave a moving account of his deteriorating health. He told the court in no uncertain terms that he did not expect to live long and wished to die amongst his people in Bagaicha, Ranchi. It is appalling that such a simple request could not be met by our judicial system,” wrote the families in their public statement. 

They stated that they held “the negligent jails, the indifferent courts and the malicious investigating agencies firmly responsible for his unfortunate death” adding that they “fear for the health and lives of our family members and colleagues, who are facing the similar injustices in the same jails, under the same unaccountable system.” 

As Setalvad wrote, “The NIA directly under India’s Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) is the agency that has been particularly venal in this case, the conduct of Maharashtra’s jail authorities and bureaucracy that has laced their defence of prison conditions with falsehoods not borne out by fact, needs special focus” and made “an unequivocal demand for the Repeal of the UAPA.”

The families of those who remain in jail have stated that they “refuse to be silent spectators and are ready to pay the price!” Words made immortal by Father Stan himself.

Related:

The institutional murder of Father Stan Swamy
Father Stan Swamy passes away waiting for bail
Bombay HC directs Fr. Stan Swamy to be shifted to Holy Family Hospital for 2 weeks
Stan takes a stand 
Stand with Father Stan Swamy
Stan Swamy: The oldest activist to be targeted by the government

The post Fr Stan Swamy’s death highlights the need to repeal UAPA appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The Odisha High Court while hearing two petitions highlighting the various issues concerning the jails, noted the absence of jail visits by the District Magistrates and the medical teams.

This led the Bench of Chief Justice S. Muralidhar and Justice B. P. Routray, to direct the District Magistrates of various districts to make surprise visits to jails within their jurisdiction, in coordination with the Secretary of the concerned District Legal Services Authority (DLSA) or Taluk Legal Services Committee (TLSC) between March 15 and April 16.  

Thereafter, they have been instructed to submit a joint report to the court “on the conditions of the jails, condition of the prisoners, issues of overcrowding, the status of facilities within the jails including provisions for food and shelter, recreation etc.” The Bench emphasised that these visits should be “unannounced.”

The court added, “The State Government will also organize at least one medical inspection of each of the district jails and sub jails in the State of Odisha by a team of medical professionals within the aforementioned period and the reports of such visits will also be placed before the Court on the next date.”

The court said that every District Judge will undertake a visit to the jail within their jurisdiction every month and submit a report to it and a compilation of such reports for the months of January, February, and March, 2021 be placed before the Court next month by the Registrar General of the Court.

Further, the Amicus Curiae Gautam Misra apprised the court that there is rampant use of narcotics as well as mobile phones inside the jails. The court directed the authorities visiting the jails, to keep this aspect in mind and highlight it in their respective reports.

The Bench also asked the State Government and Jail authorities to submit information about the installation of CCTV cameras in jails. The learned AC has also drawn attention to five news items concerning deaths of prison inmates in Odisha over the last five years and the issue of overcrowding of jails.

The High Court referred to the Supreme Court’s decision in In Re: Inhuman Conditions in 1382 Prisons (2016), and held that “it is absolutely essential that the above directions of the Supreme Court are implemented in letter and spirit to improve the conditions of jails in Orissa and this requires to be done in a timebound manner.”

The matter will be heard on April 27, 2021.

The order may be read here:

Related:

Prisoners too have human rights: Allahabad HC
What lies behind the high walls of Indian prisons?
Does India uphold Prisoners’ Right to Health?

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In March this year, just as the Covid-19 pandemic was getting serious, an Inter-Agency Standing Committee issued interim guidance on how people deprived of their liberty should be treated amidst growing concerns of the Coronavirus infection.

The two agencies; Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights (OHCHR) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) jointly issued the detailed guidance that said that “persons deprived of their liberty in prisons, administrative detention centres, immigration detention centres and drug rehabilitation centres, require a specific focus.” The guidance said, “Persons deprived of their liberty face higher vulnerabilities as the spread of the virus can expand rapidly due to the usually high concentration of persons deprived of their liberty in confined spaces and to the restricted access to hygiene and health care in some contexts.” It recommended “paying particular attention to persons deprived of liberty belonging to vulnerable or high-risk groups, such as the elderly, women, children, and persons with disabilities, amongst others.”

The guidance also recommended, “Public authorities should take immediate steps to address prison overcrowding, including measures to respect WHO guidance on social distancing and other health measures. Release of individuals, including children, persons with underlying health conditions, persons with low risk profiles and who have committed minor and petty offences, persons with imminent release dates and those detained for offences not recognized under international law, should be prioritized.”

On the subject of migrants in detention centers, the guidance recommends, “Authorities should urgently establish non-custodial alternatives to migrant detention in accordance with international law. Any deprivation of liberty must have sufficient legal grounds and, must take place in accordance with procedure established by law, while those detained are entitled to have their detention reviewed by a court of law. Authorities should be encouraged to examine carefully the legal basis for detention, and release anyone whose detention is arbitrary or otherwise does not comply with domestic or international standards.” Moreover, when it comes to arbitrary detentions, it says, “Those who are arbitrarily detained should be immediately released as the prohibition of arbitrary detention is a non-derogable norm and their continued detention under the current public health emergency might also severely impact their right to health and their right to life. This includes people in pre-removal detention where deportations have been suspended due to the COVID situation, as in many of such cases, the grounds for their continued deprivation of liberty no longer exist.”

When it comes to the health of persons deprived of their liberty, the guidance says, “All detainees should have access to medical care and treatment without discrimination,” adding, “Pro-active measures and monitoring should be put in place to ensure that essential personal hygiene items such as soap and sanitizer, as well as menstrual items for women and girls, are made available at no cost throughout their continued use beyond initial distribution point.”

The entire interim guidance may be read here: 

Later, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), OHCHR, WHO and UNAIDS also issued a joint statement to “urgently draw the attention of political leaders to the heightened vulnerability of prisoners and other people deprived of liberty to the Covid-19 pandemic.”

On the subject of over-crowing the statement says, “In the light of overcrowding in many places of detention, which undermines hygiene, health, safety and human dignity, a health response to COVID-19 in closed settings alone is insufficient. Overcrowding constitutes an insurmountable obstacle for preventing, preparing for or responding to Covid-19. We urge political leaders to consider limiting the deprivation of liberty, including pretrial detention, to a measure of last resort, particularly in the case of overcrowding, and to enhance efforts to resort to non-custodial measures.”

It adds, “Compulsory detention and rehabilitation centres, where people suspected of using drugs or engaging in sex work are detained, without due process, in the name of treatment or rehabilitation should be closed. There is no evidence that such centres are effective in the treatment of drug dependence or rehabilitation of people and the detention of people in such facilities raises human rights issues and threatens the health of detainees, increasing the risks of Covid-19 outbreaks.”

The statement raises special concerns about comorbidity saying, “Prison populations have an overrepresentation of people with substance use disorders, HIV, tuberculosis (TB) and hepatitis B and C compared to the general population. The rate of infection of diseases in such a confined population is also higher than among the general population. Beyond the normal infectivity of the Covid-19 pandemic, people with substance use disorders, HIV, hepatitis and TB may be at increased risk of complications from Covid-19.”   

The entire joint statement may be read here: 

Related:

Impact of Covid-19 on Children
Covid-19 disproportionately affecting Indigenous people: UN

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Activist Gautam Navlakha,  currently lodged in an overcrowded and unhygienic quarantine facility that runs from a school in Pune has raised serious concerns about a Covid-19 threat. He had raised the issue at the time of his arrest too. Gautam Navlakha is among those accused of allegedly making  provocative speeches at the Elgar Parishad conclave held december 2017, in Pune. The next day violence had erupted at the Bhima-Koregaon war memorial.  He was booked under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, or UAPA  The case is under the  National Investigation Agency.

Navlakha’s partner, Sahba Husain has shared their recent conversation where the activist described the conditions at the quarantine facility he was housed at. Sahba Husain narrated the conversation to their common friend Anand Patwardhan, who then shared it in a  Facebook post.

The post details the horrific conditions that the activists, and 349 other inmates are living under, even as the Covid-19 pandemic is at its worst in Maharashtra. According to Navlakha the facility runs from a school building and  the 350 adults are divided into six class rooms. The room that Navlakha is in has 35 other inmates, and more are forced to sleep in the corridors due to the overcrowding. All the inmates have to share three toilets, seven urinals and have to bathe in a common space.

Here is what Patwardhan posted online: 

***************************************************************************

“A very worrying letter from Gautam’s partner Sahba. Remember that Maharashtra is the epicenter of the Covid epidemic.

Dear Anand

Gautam called me yesterday after a gap of 15 days. All I knew until then was that he was sent to a quarantine facility in Taloja on 26th May after he was suddenly shifted from Tihar jail in Delhi to Bombay. This quarantine facility runs from a school building in Taloja where new inmates are brought before being shifted to jail.

Gautam mentioned to me on the phone some of the horrific details that I am sharing with you.

He said that there are 350 inmates crowded into six classrooms in the building with Gautam having to share the room with 35 other inmates, many others sleeping in the corridors and passages. There are only 3 toilets, 7 urinals and a common bating space without a bucket or a mug. He said that the congestion is such that apart from the fear of Covid-19, inmates are prone to skin infections too.

He also said that there is no fresh air as they are mostly locked in with no place to walk or exercise, although he manages to do his yoga as other inmates help to clear some space for him. He said he has lost 2 kg in these three weeks of prolonged quarantine and was wondering how long the authorities would keep him and the other inmates in such inhuman conditions. Taloja jail at present does not seem to have space for new prisoners such as him. Given these circumstances it worries me to think about the extreme health risk that he and other inmates are being exposed to on a daily basis.

He also mentioned how all of them are completely cut off from the outside world as there is no news flowing in or out of this quarantine facility. He wondered about what could be going on in the world outside!

I must say I am truly aghast with what he shared with me yesterday.

Despite these deplorable conditions that he described to me, he sounded well and said that he is trying his best to manage and not wilt under the sheer burden of this ordeal.

I thought I must share this with you since you have often been asking me about his well being . His lawyers and I are trying to see what can be done, although I do believe that it is important for us outside to raise our voice against this kind of inhuman treatment of a political prisoner like Gautam – and in fact all the other BK 11 currently in jail.

You must have also heard regarding Varvara Rao’s terrible and deteriorating health condition inside the jail.

The concerned authorities urgently need to look into this and make necessary amends.

Well, thanks for calling me earlier today.

Salaam,

Sahba ”
**************************************************************************

According to news reports, Navlakha had been taken to Pune from Delhi’s Tihar jail, and sent to the quarantine facility. Prisoners were to be quarantined before they were shifted to the Taloja central jail. That was three weeks ago.

In April, Gautam Navlakha had written a note after his and scholar activist Anand Teltumbde’s bail applications had been rejected by the Supreme Court. The court had given them a week to surrender to the National Investigation Agency (NIA), which they had. Even at that time he had then written a note and expressed his concerns about the Covid-19 pandemic. That note too had been widely reported. A crucial excerpt:

“The Indian Prime Minister has likened the challenge posed by Covid19 pandemic to a state of “national emergency”. Meanwhile the apex court itself recently intervened in the matter of jail conditions, and issued guidelines to the authorities regarding the overcrowding of jail inmates and the threat posed to the prisoners and detenues, jail staff and other personnel assigned jail duties. This concern remains although no case of Covid19 infection has come from any jail so far, somewhat reassuring for me. However, I am affected by the fear that my near and dear ones harbour about my captivity amidst Covid19.

I cannot help but feel disappointed that the terse order of the Supreme Court on 8th April had no reference to the Covid19 pandemic, which has overtaken the world, including all of us in India. 

However, I can now begin to face the actual legal process, which accompanies cases where provisions of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act are invoked. Such Acts turn the normal jurisprudence upside down. No longer is it the axiom that ‘a person is innocent unless proven guilty’. In fact, under such Acts, ‘an accused is guilty unless proven innocent’.”

Related:

Gautam Navlakhas call to freedom
SC orders Teltumbde, Navlakha to surrender in one week
Bhima Koregaon case: Civil society members pen open letter

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It is my father’s birthday today. He turns 63. Due to the brutality of our government and the failure of our judiciary he will be spending his birthday in a prison cell. At the time of a serious global pandemic when he falls in the category of people most vulnerable he will be spending his birthday in an overcrowded prison with no adequate health facilities.

Today I thought of sharing a little about how he has has been spending his time in the past year and a half in Yerwada prison, Pune.

The image below is part of a letter written by a political prisoner Arun, who is still in Yerwada jail, to my mother. The letter was written after my father was shifted from Pune to Mumbai. In this Arun speaks of his own meeting with another prisoner Sonawne who was with my father in the same yard in Yerwada jail.

Sonawane told Arun

“Vernon Uncle is a very nice person. He taught me how to study the Constitution and created in me an interest about it. He is very talented. Varavara Raoji gave me a gift of poems as a gift. Both Vernon and VV gave me a lot of respect. They gave me the inspiration to become a better person. Nowadays I spend my time studying the Constitution. Do tell them that I remember them and send my salaams.”

Yes this is what my father, the ‘Urban Naxal’, has been doing in prison. Teaching people about the Constitution.

He would hold one hour long classes in his prison yard with around 10-12 of the other inmates. He would mainly teach them English with a focus on spoken English. He would encourage them to read out loud and speak a few sentences confidently. He would ask us to send him simple books which he could give for his students to read and borrow from the prison library also for the same. The diary of Anne Frank was one of the books he borrowed. He took these classes almost daily.

The last time I met my father in court he told me about how his students had an extra long session with in the last few days before he was shifted from Pune. Everyone candidly shared their life stories and spoke about their experiences. My father gave me a very enthusiastic description of this farewell session with his students. It conjured vivid images of all of them sharing warmth and cheer in very bleak circumstances.

I haven’t been able to hear from him at all since that day which was almost two months ago so I’m not sure about how he spends his time in Taloja Jail.

Through one of the prisoners out on bail from Taloja we got to know that my father had written that person’s bail application and many other prisoner’s interim bail applications after the COVID outbreak.

My father’s experiences and writings have given me a ringside view of the many inequalities and injustices that exist in our criminal justice system and our prisons. Innocent people are thrown into prison because of their identity on false charges. It takes years for their trials to even begin and they end up spending more time in prison as under trials. They come from poor families and hence don’t have access to good legal support as well which increases their prison time.

It is his stories that make me completely agree with Joan Baez when she sang about razing the prisons to the ground.

Our prisons and the entire judicial system desperately need systemic changes which would make it a justice system in the true sense.

My father is a very kind and compassionate person who always tries to make the people around him laugh. The work he continues to do in jail is a true testament to this nature of his. In such a difficult situation, he still is actively helping others in need and giving them a reason to smile.

Happy Birthday Dada  Thank you for everything.
I am extremely proud of the person that you are and the work that you do.
And shame on this system that is punishing you and so many others for speaking up against the injustice that is so prevalent within it.

Note:
Jail Manuals require prison administration to conduct literacy and other educational classes, facilitate induction in higher education courses through universities with provisions for distance learning and organise vocational training programs for prisoners specially those convicted for an offence. This is one of the primary objectives of Jails in India – to facilitate a meaningful engagement for prisoners – ‘reform’ of prisoners in other words.

In India, Jail administration is more often than not supported by NGOs and individual social workers in this effort. In addition, learned prisoners themselves organise classes for each other. This note gives an insight into one such episode in Yerwada Central Jail, Pune, written by a family member of ex Mumbai University Lecturer and Activist Vernon Gonsalves who is an undertrial in the infamous Bhima Koregaon case.

The post From Sagar, Son to Father Vernon: Happy Birthday Dada! appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Residents reported that seven separate airstrikes slammed into a former university building in the southwestern city of Dhamar which had been converted into a detention center by the Houthis, obliterating the structure and killing or wounding every single detainee. Members of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) rushed to the scene of complete devastation to search for possible survivors and comb through the rubble for the bodies of victims.

While the Saudi-led coalition justified the horrific attack by claiming the site had been used by the Houthis to store drones and missiles, the ICRC confirmed that the attack had in fact destroyed a prison where its representatives had previously visited detainees.

“It’s a college building that has been empty and has been used as a detention facility for a while. What is most disturbing is that [the attack was] on a prison. To hit such a building is shocking and saddening—prisoners are protected by international law,” Franz Rauchenstein, the head of the ICRC’s delegation in Yemen told the Guardian .

The Saudi monarchy, given the green light by Obama in March 2015 and now with the unyielding support of Trump, has been waging a bloody assault on Yemen in an effort to return its puppet President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi back to power after he was forced to flee the country in the face of an advance by the Houthis. The US claims the Houthi rebels are backed by Iran and that the war is a critical component of its efforts to counter Tehran’s influence in the region. Despite repeated assertions, the Trump administration has yet to provide any evidence to back up its allegations.

Trump reaffirmed Washington’s support for the Saudi-led slaughter in Yemen in April when he vetoed a congressional resolution which would have required the Pentagon to end direct military support. Without enough votes to overcome the president’s veto, the bill was seen as an opportunity by a number of current Democratic presidential candidates to make a phony show of sympathy for the broad antiwar sentiments in the US population.

Saudi jets, armed with US and UK bombs and provided with targeting information by US military intelligence officers stationed in Saudi Arabia, have continued to carry out repeated attacks on civilian targets, including schools, hospitals, residential neighborhoods, mosques, funerals and markets. The US had provided coalition jets with mid-air refueling until the end of last year, ensuring maximum carnage.

An analysis of casualty and death toll data published earlier this year by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) found that the total number of people killed in direct political violence in Yemen is approaching 100,000, including 12,000 civilians, between January 2015 and June of this year. ACLED found the Saudi coalition responsible for 68 percent of all civilian casualties recorded.

These figures do not include those civilians, including children, who have died of cholera and malnourishment as a result of a naval blockade enforced by the Saudi-led coalition and the US Navy and airstrikes on critical infrastructure, including water, sanitation and electrical systems. Some 8 million Yemenis are currently living on the brink of starvation.

The global charity Save the Children estimated at the end of last year that as many as 85,000 children under the age of five had died from starvation since the Saudi assault began. And the worst cholera outbreak on record has infected more than 1.2 million people, claiming the lives of more than 2,500.

The Saudi-led coalition has hindered efforts to treat the wounded and sick by repeatedly bombing hospitals, including an attack on a Doctors Without Borders cholera treatment facility in northwestern Yemen in June 2018.

Despite spending billions of dollars, dropping tens of thousands of bombs and thereby creating the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, Saudi Arabia and the US appear no closer to the goal of dominating Yemen today than they did in March 2015 when the onslaught began.

An apparent split has emerged between Saudi Arabia and its main coalition partner, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), in recent months, with Abu Dhabi announcing the pullout of its ground forces from Yemen in July and subsequently turning equipment and positions over to the tens of thousands of militia members whom it has funded and trained.

As a result, a new front has opened up in the war, with Yemeni army forces loyal to Hadi supported by Saudi Arabia fighting the separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC) and allied Security Belt Forces militia backed by the UAE for control over the southern port city of Aden.
On Thursday, airstrikes by UAE fighter jets killed 45 soldiers and wounded dozens of others in an assault which targeted forces loyal to Hadi in Aden and neighboring Abyan province. Dozens of Hadi loyalists have been arrested by the southern separatists on charges of “terrorism.”

With the backing of the UAE, the STC is seeking the re-establishment of the independent state of South Yemen, known officially as the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen, which existed from 1967 to 1990 with the backing of the Soviet Union. The dissolution of the USSR led to the creation of unified Yemen followed by a failed southern secessionist movement in 1994 which was suppressed by the north.

Meanwhile the Trump administration has continued to carry out the drone war in Yemen which was initiated by Obama under the guise of the so-called “War on Terror.” So far this year there have been nine drone strikes, with at least 10 people killed. While there have been no reported use of US drone strikes in support of the Saudi-led war, an armed US military MQ-9 Reaper drone was shot down over Dhamar by Houthi forces in late August.

Originally published in WSWS.org
 

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Image Courtesy: Indian Express

Five men who were accused in the 1996 Samleti blast case were on Monday acquitted by the Jaipur High Court after 23 years as the prosecution could not establish any link between them and the main accused, Dr Abdul Hameed, whose death sentence was upheld, reported the Indian Express.
 
A trial court at Bandikui in Dausahad awarded death penalty to one person, Dr Abdul Hamid, and life terms to seven others in the 1996 bomb blast case.

The division bench of justices Sabina and GoverdhanBardhar, however, upheld the death penalty awarded to Abdul Hamid, saying he was the key person behind planting of the bomb in the bus going to Bikaner from Agra on May 22, 1996.

On Tuesday evening, Latif Ahmed Baja (42), Ali Bhatt (48), Mirza Nisar (39), Abdul Goni (57) and Rayees Beg (56), stepped out of prison; Beg had been incarcerated since June 8, 1997, while the others were imprisoned between June 17, 1996 and July 27, 1996. During this time, they were lodged in jails in Delhi and Ahmedabad, but were never released on parole or bail.
 
After their release the five men saidthat they didn’t know each other until the Criminal Investigation Department (Crime Branch) made them an accused in the case. While Beg is a resident of Agra, Goni is from Doda district of Jammu and Kashmir, and the others are from Srinagar. Before they were jailed, Bhatt had a carpet business, Baja used to sell Kashmiri handicraft in Delhi and Kathmandu, Nisar was a Class IX student and Goni used to run a school.

“We have no idea about the world we are stepping into,” saidGoni. “We’ve lost relatives while we were inside. My mother, father and two uncles passed away. We have been acquitted, but who will bring back those years,” asked Beg, adding that his sister has since got married and his niece is now about to get married too.

The case dates back to May 22, 1996, when a bomb blast in a bus near Samleti village in Dausa, on the Jaipur-Agra highway, claimed 14 lives and injured 37 people; the bus was headed to Bikaner from Agra. The blast came a day after the Lajpat Nagar bomb blast in Delhi, in which 13 people were killed.

The chargesheet had accused the men of being associated with the Kashmir based militant group, Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) and even claimed that they were also involved in the Sawai Man Singh Stadium blast in Jaipur in 1996. Their counsel Shahid Hasan said, “They were named in multiple cases without any basis. They have been acquitted in all the cases — but after 23 years.”
 

The post After 23 years in Prison on false charges, five Men walk out free in Samleti Blast case appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Parchman Penal Farm. Female prisoners sewing, circa 1930. Flickr/Mississippi Department of Archives and History. Some rights reserved.

More than 60% of women in state prisons in the US have a child under the age of 18. On any given day, over 2.7 million, or 1 in 28 children have a parent in prison. Children with incarcerated parents are more likely to experience depression, anxiety, poor academic performance, school absenteeism/drop out, poverty, homelessness, difficulty transitioning to basic adult roles, and physical health problems including migraines, asthma, and high cholesterol.

Children with incarcerated parents are 6-9 times more likely to become incarcerated themselves. Black children are seven-and-a-half times more likely than White children to have a parent in prison, and Latino children are two-and-a-half times more likely to experience this family dynamic.

In 2000, in Masked Racism: Reflections on the Prison Industrial Complex, Angela Yvonne Davis examined the infamy of the Prison Industrial Complex (PIC), a term first coined, maybe by Angela Davis herself, in the late 1990’s. What is the PIC? It is a term used to describe the overlapping interests of government and industry that use surveillance, policing and imprisonment as solutions to economic, social and political problems. Davis stated:

“Prison privatization is the most obvious instance of capital’s current movement toward the prison industry. While government-run prisons are often in gross violation of international human rights standards, private prisons are even less accountable. In March 1998, the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the largest US private prison company, claimed 54,944 beds in 68 facilities under contract or development in the US, Puerto Rico, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Following the global trend of subjecting more women to public punishment, CCA opened a women’s prison outside Melbourne.

Private prison companies are only the most visible component of the increasing corporatization of punishment. Many corporations whose products we consume on a daily basis have learned that prison labor can be as profitable as third world labor power exploited by US-based global corporations. Both relegate formerly unionized workers to joblessness and many even wind up in prison. Some of the companies that use prison labor are IBM, Motorola, Compaq, Texas Instruments, Honeywell, Microsoft, and Boeing. But it is not only the hi-tech industries that reap the profits of prison labor.

The California Prison Industry Authority (CALPIA) uses inmate labor to build, grow, and manufacture products for state agencies, institutions and schools. Products such as furniture, food products & agriculture, clothing, bedding, shoes & boots, and more. The 2016 revenue earned by PIA was approximately 225M, while inmates work pay ranges from .32-$1 per hour.
 

• PIA Mission Statement: CALPIA is a self-supporting, customer-focused business that reduces recidivism, increases prison safety, and enhances public safety by providing offenders productive work and training opportunities.
• Vision Statement: Changing offenders’ lives through innovative job training for a safer California.

While these messages may be the mission and vision of CalPIA, the training provided seldom if ever leads to work post-release. Unemployment and underemployment are the biggest barriers to successful reentry.”

Davis continued:
“Nordstrom department stores sell jeans that are marketed as “Prison Blues”, as well as t-shirts and jackets made in Oregon prisons. The advertising slogan for these clothes is “made on the inside to be worn on the outside”. Maryland prisoners inspect glass bottles and jars used by Revlon and Pierre Cardin, and schools throughout the world buy graduation caps and gowns made by South Carolina prisoners. “For private business”, write Eve Goldberg and Linda Evans (a political prisoner inside the Federal Correctional Institution at Dublin, California) “prison labor is like a pot of gold. No strikes. No union organizing. No health benefits, unemployment insurance, or workers’ compensation to pay. No language barriers, as in foreign countries. Prisoners do data entry for Chevron, make telephone reservations for airlines, raise hogs, shovel manure, make circuit boards, limousines, waterbeds, and lingerie for Victoria’s Secret all at a fraction of the cost of `free labor'”.

As a youth, I was arrested and convicted of a crime and sentenced to life in prison.  I served 23 years at the California Institution for women in Corona, CA.  When I was first incarcerated in 1988, the women’s prison in Corona was the largest women’s prison in the world. Since the 1980s prison expansion in California CIW has become second to the California Central Women’s Facility in Chowchilla which opened in 1991. We often saw tours given to visitors from other countries who were looking to CIW as a model to emulate. Many countries now look away from the American carceral system as a model, seeing prison expansion and mass incarceration of its citizens as disgraceful and a human rights violation.  

CIW was built in 1952 to hold approximately 500 women. When I arrived, there were 2800 female bodied prisoners packed into converted dayrooms, custodial boiler rooms, doubled bunked cells, and the auditorium.  From the vast number of women locked up, it was clear that CDC was only interested in human capital as a means of profiteering. The majority of women behind bars were convicted of drug-related and property crimes. Black women made up 47% of the population in 1988 and continued to grow through the late 1990s.
By the time I was released in 2011 Black women made up approximately 37% of the population behind bars a decrease of 10% but still a disproportionate number in relationship to the general population. Thanks to prison abolitionists, criminal justice reformists and policy changes, black women are less impacted today. However, the damage has been done and the cycle of generational poverty and incarceration is still high for black Americans.

To further illustrate these remarks Davis points out:
“To deliver up bodies destined for profitable punishment, the political economy of prisons relies on racialized assumptions of criminality – such as images of black welfare mothers reproducing criminal children – and on racist practices in arrest, conviction, and sentencing patterns. Colored bodies constitute the main human raw material in this vast experiment to disappear the major social problems of our time. Homelessness, unemployment, drug addiction, mental illness, and illiteracy are only a few of the problems that disappear from public view when the human beings contending with them are relegated to cages. Prisons thus perform a feat of magic.

“But prisons do not disappear problems, they disappear human beings. And the practice of disappearing vast numbers of people from poor, immigrant, and racially marginalized communities has literally become a big business. Once the aura of magic is stripped away from the imprisonment solution, what is revealed is racism, class bias, and the parasitic seduction of capitalist profit. The prison industrial system materially and morally impoverishes its inhabitants and devours the social wealth needed to address the very problems that have led to spiraling numbers of prisoners.”
 

The prison industrial complex is a business!

The impact and intersection of race, mass incarceration, state violence and authoritarian capitalism can be seen and felt in places like Ferguson, Missouri.  After the murder of Michael Brown, Jr, an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson, Missouri by Darren Wilson, a white police office, the world witnessed the use of military force and weaponry on US soil against peaceful protesters and on American citizens like never before.

I was living in North County St. Louis when all this happened.  I protested, attended rallies, and volunteered with the Ferguson Commission, a body of 16 local leaders. The charge was to address the underlying root cause that led to the unrest in the wake of Michael Brown’s death and to publish a report with transformative policy recommendations for making the region stronger and a better place for everyone to live and to guide the community in charting a new path toward healing and positive change for all residents of the St. Louis region. 

We know the 2015 report concluded what most reports have concluded after investigating the cause of unrest in Black communities over the past century (i.e., East St. Louis (1917), Watts (1965), Detroit (1967), and Los Angeles (1992)). Strategies for healing racial wounds, dismantling structural racism, and promoting racial and ethnic equity are needed but never produced.

The continuous mistreatment, torture, terrorism, and murder of Blacks in America as sanctioned by State violence and white supremacy have been normalized by authoritarian capitalism.  

Not much has changed in St. Louis since August 9, 2014. On September 15, 2017 another White police officer (ex-police officer) Jason Stockley was acquitted for killing Anthony Lamar Smith (24 yrs. old) after being caught on tape stating: “I’m going to kill the nigger,” despite the investigation concluding that he had planted a firearm in Smith’s car.

Authoritarian capitalism and the prison industrial complex is a two-tiered tyrannical system designed to enslave through mass incarceration. The white imagination that sees black people as less than human, sees poor people as slaves, and profit as justice.

California Institution for Women, Aerial View,2004. Wikicommons/ California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Some rights reserved.

About the author
Spending 23 years in a California women’s prison, Romarilyn Ralston saw firsthand the factors that bring women to prison and what needs to be changed. She worked alongside peers, wardens and state officials to improve living conditions and to develop gender-responsive practices for women in prison. After release from prison, she earned a B.A. from Pitzer College in Gender & Feminist Studies, and a Master’s degree from Washington University in St. Louis. She was awarded a Coro Fellowship in Public Affairs.

Courtesy: https://www.opendemocracy.net
 

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