Thursday, January 13, 2011

Fwd: Visit of the SR on human rights defenders to India, 11-21 January 2010:second input



---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: PVCHR ED <pvchr.india@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Nov 29, 2010 at 8:15 AM
Subject: Re: Visit of the SR on human rights defenders to India, 11-21 January 2010:second input
To: Dolores Infante Canibano <DInfante@ohchr.org>


To

Mrs Margaret Sekaggya

Special Rapporteur on the situation of Human Rights Defenders



Through

Dolores Infante-Cañibano
Human Rights Officer
Civil and Political Rights Section
Special Procedures Branch
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights



Dear Mrs Sekaggya

Thank you very much for relating to our organization People's
Vigilance Committee on Human Rights (PVCHR) for inputs for your
incoming visit to India. On behalf of our organization, I have already
responded to your mail. Subsequently, I was wondering whether I could
have made more purposeful contribution in your planning so as to make
the visit more result oriented. I urge you to consider my inputs
complete after going through the following text.

I am sure every rights conscious global citizen and the scholars
across the world would agree that sovereign independent countries
across the globe impacted by international legal regime have started
showing more understanding towards protection of human rights, even
with reluctance and my country, India is no exception. Successive
governments in India, under constraints, have preferred to pick and
choose treaties. A close monitoring of this decision by the state
leads to a constraint-impact linkage.  However, PVCHR believes that
human rights agreements in India is a result of the groundswell of
opinion generated across the Indian society with roots in rural India.
Messages from villages have changed the politics inside the country.
It has influence legislative agendas, altered political coalitions and
defined the terms of acceptable state actions. Having achieved that
the country still  ponders  over issues of justification and
affordability of human rights in our everyday's life. India has failed
to understand that better human rights leads to  stronger democratic
practices.

PVCHR believes and realized that in India, a section of civil society
groups who think legalistically, have monopolized all information
related to issues of human rights both within and outside the country.
 These elite groups have always denied the rightful place to the
millions of silent, barefoot human rights defenders (HRDs)creating
'brown revolution' true to the color of the earth, in every village of
India.  PVCHR has been trying to its bit by 'hand holding' these human
rights defenders who are scripting success stories for humanity
without any expectation. Unrelenting faith in human value rule of law
have been their driving force.

These HRDs including women, PVCHR connects with are predominantly
dalits (fighting to break free from 3000 years of discrimination),
Muslims (victims of discrimination since India became a Republic) and
tribals (lost everything in the debate between development and
environment). They work in 'ground zero', which comes in the fearful
'red corridor', ruled by the Maoist groups. They have been opposing
the violations by both the state and non state actors and many of them
have been in and out of the prison without knowing why. In the process
hundreds have lost their lives. No one records it. Everything goes
unreported.  Thankfully, outside support and publicity hardly bothers
them. They believe that, only they can fight their battle and
influence politics respecting rule of law.

PVCHR believes that it is time your visit must make a historical
departure by listening to the unsung heroes-human rights defenders in
true sense. We propose to organize your meeting at Varanasi (cultural
capital of India and one and half hour by plane from Delhi) with 20
odd human rights defenders representing the states of Uttar Pradesh,
Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand. We in the organization believe that
after this meeting you will look at issues of human rights defenders
in India in a different way. Date, time will be as per your
consideration. When you think about your visit to my country, please
remember, Delhi is not India.


Best regards



Dr Lenin

On 11/25/10, Dolores Infante Canibano <DInfante@ohchr.org> wrote:
> Dear defenders,
>
> As you may know, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights
> defenders, Margaret Sekaggya, will visit India from 11 to 21 January 2011.
>  In this connection, we would be grateful if you could provide us with
> relevant information regarding the visit, in particular about the
> following points:
>
> - Main issues of concern for human rights defenders in India
> - Suggestions of places to visit in the country taken into account the
> duration of the visit
> - Relevant key authorities,institutions and civil society to meet
> -Any other pertinent information
>
> We would appreciate it if you could provide us with your input as soon as
> possible and, ideally, no later than 3 December 2010.
>
> Many thanks in advance for your assistance.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Dolores
>
> Dolores Infante-Cañibano
> Human Rights Officer
> Civil and Political Rights Section
> Special Procedures Branch
> Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
> Tel: +41 (0) 22 917-9730
> Fax: +41(0) 22 917-9006

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