Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Blog Action Day: Human Rights

Blog Action Day is an annual event held every October 15 that unites the world’s bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day with the aim of sparking discussion around an issue of global importance.



Today's theme is Human Rights!



When one thinks about ghastly human rights violations, one generally thinks of certain African nations and then south east asian countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan.. very few people realise that there are violations of that scale occurring in India as well.



Heres a quick run down for those who need a refresher:



1)Police brutality, extrajudicial killings, and torture.

according to a 2002-09 study, over four people per day died while in police custody,

with "hundreds" of those deaths being due to police use of torture.



2)In this country, human rights defenders have been killed, tortured, ill-treated, disappeared, threatened, arbitrarily arrested and detained, falsely charged.



3)Freedom of speach ... remember when blogger/blogspot was blocked years ago.. in 2011? - refresh your memory how about the time Reliance took it upon themselves(without authorisation from the govt.) to block certain websites.



4)Slavery(yes we have it in India, under various other names, click here to learn more)



ok the list goes on and on.. and i'm no expert on the matter, so will just point you at this page where you will find everything



I'm going to concentrate on one incident that blew my mind. Back in 2011 the govt actually banned a website that hosted cartoons against corruption!

heres a glympse of the objectionable material..



the cartoons in question were

1) the one depicting of the national emblem(original has four Sarnath lions of King Asoka) with 3 bloodthirsty wolves,with the motto “Bhrashtamev Jayate” (long live corruption)

2) the representation of the Parliament as a Toilet

3) mother India(in tricolour) being gangraped by a politician, a beurocrat and a demon "corruption"



to see the cartoons, click the image above or head over to cartoonsagainstcorruption.blogspot.in



Crime Branch, Mumbai banned the website of Cartoons Against Corruption during the hunger strike of Anna Hazare in December 2011. Cartoonist Aseem Trivedi was arrested in September 2012 and was sent to judicial custody till 24 September on charges of sedition, which is a non-bailable offence.



He was subsequently granted bail and released. Mr. Trivedi has now turned fulltime activist fighting against censorship in India.. and runs a campaign(along with journalist Alok Dixit) for internet freedom called Save Your Voice



More on the incident and its fallout here



my last BlogAction Day post was a light hearted post on Climate Change(2009). see it here



via Inaccessible is Accessible http://my.opera.com/chaitanyak/blog/show.dml/109340182

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