The Hindu : Front Page : 451 human rights violation cases documented so far this year

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Monday, Dec 10, 2007
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451 human rights violation cases documented so far this year

Special Correspondent

There are not many defenders of human rights, say activists

— Photo: K. Murali Kumar

Far cry: Many undertrials are too poor to get paid legal services.

Bangalore: The South India Cell for Human Rights Education and Monitoring (SICHREM), which has been studying cases of custodial torture over the last two years in six districts of the State, has documented 451 cases between January and November 2007 alone. It believes that, in addition, there have been several encounter and custodial death cases.

What Philip Mathew of SICHREM finds alarming is not only the number of cases, but also the absence of a debate around them. The awareness on human rights issues is a notch lower in Karnataka compared with other southern States, he believes. SICHREM, he says, often has a hard time finding lawyers to represent their cases.

As the world celebrates the 60th anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights, human rights groups in Karnataka are divided on how to prioritise the violations. But they all unanimously agree that there is a need for greater awareness on the rights of individuals at multiple levels and the involvement of more people in the fight against violations.

Hassan Mansoor of People’s Union of Civil Liberties says the biggest threat staring at Karnataka is the increasing religious intolerance. “Religious hatred has the ability to sweep aside all other kinds of social activism. It is the worst thing that can happen to human rights,” he says. Unfortunately, there are not enough voices to counter this, regrets Prof. Mansoor.

According to G.K. Ramaswamy of the People’s Democratic Forum, there is a “pervasive insensitivity” in the political system to rights issues. “Politicians want power even if it divides people on the lines of caste, religion or region,” he argues.

The lack of awareness, says Prof. Ramaswamy, extends to even the fundamental rights of citizens to natural resources such as clean water and air. A city such as Bangalore is a prime example of how such rights are increasingly being denied to the poor with no “credible mechanism” to counter the violations, he says.

This view is endorsed by Byatha N. Jagadeesh from the Alternative Law Forum, who fights cases for people too poor to afford paid legal assistance. “I have fought cases in which a thief is accused of stealing something like Rs. 20. It is a socio-economic and human rights issue. The challenge is of finding ways of questioning a system that is ever so powerful,” says Mr. Jagadeesh. “For example, how does a poor garment worker fight a case against a multinational garment giant?”

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