One does not have to be a great champion of human rights and civil liberty to rejoice at seeing “Guantanamo” ordered closed down, torture banned and the trials of the inmates suspended till May 2009 to be held in regular courts. Barack Obama has closed this horrible chapter in the history of United States. Guantanamo Bay detention camps in Cuba were cages where humans were detained for years without trials and were subjected to unthinkable torture and humiliation. A prisoner stripped naked and forced to wear a lower female underwear on the head! A human being on a dog leash forced to do tricks. These are but two examples of humiliation. Guantanamo is becoming a thing of the past.
When we see the human rights violation ending at Guantanamo, we cant help having a hard look at our own Guantanamos, our own human rights violations, our own custodial deaths, our own third degree and cold blooded killings in police custody and “encounters”. One wonders whether encounters are “carried out” in any other countries and if there are “encounter specialists” over there as well.
After every terror attack young men are rounded up indiscriminately. They are locked up, tortured, humiliated for days together and released after the police find no evidence against them. After bomb blasts in Makka Masjid at Hyderabad in 2007, 75 young men were rounded up, detained illegally and tortured. When the case was handed over to CBI, within hours of interrogation the agency found the arrests of 43 persons unnecessary and released them. The remaining were acquitted by courts towards the end of 2008. The case remained unsolved.
Torture of different types as method of investigation has received tacit acceptance. We are not allowing the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture to visit the country. Using National Human Rights Commission’s statistics, Asian Centre for human rights recorded in its June 2008 report that in the five years since 2003 there have been 7468 custodial deaths. We are killing four persons every day in our jails! Very often the kin of the detainee learns about the arrest only when he is called to receive the body. There are no statistics available on torture resulting in death. There is no record of maiming, disfigurement, mental trauma, social stigma and ruined careers.
There is a UN Convention against Torture [CAT] and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. This convention is in place for the last over 20 years. India took a decade to sign it. It is now more than a decade since India is the signatory thereof. India has not ratified it. India is one of the only about six countries which have failed to do so. This in spite of numerous appeals and petitions sent to our Prime Minister. Human Rights groups are gnashing their teeth.
Binayak Sen, a doctor and social worker is languishing in jail in Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh since May 2007. Soli Sorabjee has termed his detention on fabricated charges as illegal. Another legal luminary Rajiv Dhawan has called this continuous detention “a single biggest blot on freedom for bail we have seen in a while.” Appeals for his release from various quarters are falling on deaf ears. He is held under such draconian law that even the Supreme Court is helpless.
During the debate on Unlawful Activities Prevention Act [UAPA], P Chidambaram emphasised the need for a “fair balance between respecting human rights and tough law”. The same debate ended up in the most draconian amendment in the law. Noted lawyer Soli Sorabjee has called the provisions of the amendment “constitutionally vunerable”. He has also called it inconsistent with International Covenant on civil and political rights [ICCPR].
Lord Meghnad Desai has to say this on the new UAPA: “The law just passed by the Indian Parliament is unlikely to survive a PIL which challenges its violation of human rights.”