Groups from around the world are protesting the Indian Government’s treatment of journalist Arundhati Roy

From Party of the Committees to Support Resistance – for Communism (CARC) - Italy
website: http://www.carc.it/


Solidarity with Arundathi Roy

We receive this statement by the Committee Against the War against the People of India from Florence, Italy, we share it and invite to release it as more as possible.
We share the initiative of ATIK, Confederation of Turkish Workers in Europe, and we invite to sign the petition they begun against persecution on Arundathi Roy at http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/stoppersecutionroy99/.

CARC Party – International Relations Department

From:
Committee Against the War against the People of India
Florence - Italy
Email ccgcpi.italy @ gmail.com
Tuesday, May 04, 2010


Solidarity with Arundhati Roy

Arundhati Roy is a writer and human rights activist well known in Italy and worldwide. She worked hard in recent times, denouncing the barbaric war (the so-called "Operation Green Hunt") against the indigenous people that the Indian government begun to expel them from their land and hand it to mining companies, that wish to exploit it so implementing a continental environmental devastation.
Arundathy Roy visited recently the land where the indigenous people live and resist, many of them in the ranks of the army of the Communist Party of India (Maoist), that for thirty years has worked in this area as wide as half of Europe and inhabited by one hundred million people.
On his return, she wrote a report, entitled Walking With The Comrades. The government of the Indian state Chhattisgarh says that with its writing Arundhati Roy has violated the Special Public Security Act, passed to prevent any voice of dissent and of support for people attacked by war. It is a measure providing tougher enforcement measures in a nation that has the highest number of political prisoners in the world, where prisoners are subjected to all kinds of harassment, violence, torture and where they live in conditions that lead them to death.
We express our support to Arundhati Roy and invite you to take any initiative of solidarity in defense against this latest attack by the Indian Government, and to mobilize against the war that the Indian government has started on the people of India, against the Operation Green Hunt .
In particular, we join the initiative taken by ATIK, the Confederation of Turkish Workers in Europe, which started a petition online. We invite to sign the petition against the persecution of Arundhati Roy in
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/stoppersecutionroy99/.
Committee Against War on People of India
Florence - May 4, 2010

From Frontlines of Revolutionary Struggle:

Civil Society Groups Condemn Proposed Action against Arundhati Roy

By Ka Frank

Times of India,
April 23, 2010
“Roy has been able to articulate that point of collective self-defense: that when poor people are attacked with guns, they do have a right to defend themselves. Usually, human rights activists are pushed on the back-foot on that point, but Roy articulated it well.”
NEW DELHI: Any attempt to prosecute Arundhati Roy for an article she wrote on Maoists would confirm the government’s determination to choke off dissenting voices from coming out from the south Chhattisgarh theatre of ‘war’, say leading activists.
“Whether or not one agrees with the writer, a country which prides itself as a democracy must allow the free and honest expression of such views,” says the public statement, condemning Chattisgarh police’s threatened action against writer-activist Roy whose essay “Walking with the Comrades” was published in a national newsmagazine recently.
The 36 signatories include activist Aruna Roy, advocate Prashant Bhushan, economist Jean Drez, former navy chief R H Tahiliani, RTI activist Arvind Kejriwal, environmentalist Vandana Shiva among others.
For her ‘insider’ account of days spent with Maoist groups in Dantewada district, the DGP Chattisgarh apparently received a complaint which he referred to the law department to see whether the writer can be booked under Chattisgarh Special Public Security Act.
“When a complaint is as absurd, should it not be rejected outright?” questions senior advocate Prashant Bhushan adding that the fact that they’re even considering such an action shows how unwilling the State is to consider any other point of view. “Instead of trying to understand these people, who they are, you just show you want to go in and kill them.”
A large number of people support Roy, says activist-advocate Colin Gonsalves – also a signatory — because the possible police action is seen as a an attempt to stifle voice of dissent; dissent from the government’s point of view. “The government gets rattled when an alternate point of view is articulated intellectually. Roy has been able to articulate that point of collective self-defense: that when poor people are attacked with guns, they do have a right to defend themselves. Usually, human rights activists are pushed on the back-foot on that point, but Roy articulated it well.”
The statement says, “It is important for the people to be as well informed as possible about the phenomenon of Maoism and how it has arisen so that a properly informed decision can be taken about how to deal with its challenges…. in a holistic and sensitive manner.”
To that end, the attempt towards action against Roy smacks of fascism. “Criminalising this kind of writing is a clear sign of fascism,” says Bhushan.