1857 to 2007 – Imperialism, Race, Resistance – an international conference on the 150th anniversary of the 1857 uprisings, 6 October 2007. Speakers include eminent historian Sumit Sarkar, writer Tariq Ali and human rights lawyer Nandita Haksar. REGISTER NOW FOR THE CONFERENCE AS PLACES ARE LIMITED.
Linked with The Forced Migration Review FMR, with BASJAK’s report on Jammu and Kashmir, with JAMMU AND KASHMIR: A SMOULDERING CONFLICT … , and with Professor Pandita’s Blog about Kashmir and IDPs.
She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.
She says: « Being a feminist involved with human rights concerns, Nandita faced problems on the ideological front. It was important to create a synergy between the then parallel movements ». In her three decades as a feminist and human rights lawyer, Nandita Haksar (born 1955) has contributed immensely to the development of a rights-based perspective on complex political issues. Her work in exposing human rights violations by Indian security forces in the northeast, and her efforts to bring to the fore the underground Naga movement were pioneering. Nandita has managed to win for political dissidents not judicial pity but a change in the courts’ view of human rights. She was also instrumental in bridging the gap between the feminist and the human rights movements in India. (1000PeaceWomen).
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Nandita Haksar – India
She works for the Supreme court of India.
She says also: « Mohammad Afzal has been sentenced to death by hanging for the offence of conspiring to attack the Indian Parliament on December 13, 2001. The news that the date for his hanging has been fixed for October 20, 2006, has been greeted by most of the media with approval, if not celebration. But before we endorse the decision to hang Afzal we need to inform ourselves of the hard facts of the case without emotion. It is important to remember that we are not discussing whether Afzal was or was not a part of the conspiracy to attack the Parliament. He has already been found guilty of the crime and convicted. The question is on the sentence. There are three principal reasons why hanging Mohammad Afzal would violate basic principles of natural justice and equity … (full text).
Google searches for Nandita Haksar: on book-seaarch; on blog-search; on scholar-search.
And she said: « The fight for Mohammad Afzal’s life is a fight for all that is good and meaningful in Indian democracy; the cry for revenge and his death represents the dehumanized and authoritarian aspects of the Indian State and civil society ». (Outlook India, Oct. 05, 2006).
… The police completed its entire investigation in a record time of one week and quickly arrested four people – three Kashmiri men and a Sikh woman – for helping the five deceased attackers. The main accused, Mohammad Afzal, from the start cooperated with the police and led them to the hide-outs of the five attackers and the shops from where they had purchased mobile phones, cash cards and chemicals for making bombs. He also confessed to being a part of the conspiracy … (full text, 2004).
… Now Afzal will file a petition « personally » to the president, his lawyer Nandita Haksar told the BBC … (full text).
… 1. As documented in detail by human rights activists and lawyers ( Nandita Haksar, “A Presumptuous Judgment”; Peoples Union of Democratic Rights, “A Trial of Errors”, on People’s Union for Democratic Rights, the Special judge was quite openly biased and prejudiced, and much of the “evidence” produced by the police was clearly fabricated and concocted to frame the accused.
2. The mainstream media was in total complicity with the police and the political executive in declaring the accused as guilty of terrorist conspiracy even before the trial began (this is fully documented in Mukherji, “Media and December 13”) … (full text).
« Why is Bollywood erasing mild-mannered shikarawalas of Kashmir from public memory », asks Nandita Haksar, lawyer and human rights activist. (full text).
… Commenting on the court order, their lawyer Ms. Nandita Haksar said that the court order is ?politically good as even the judicial magistrate is allowing them to go? but it is of no use legally and practically. ‘Firstly, we are not getting air tickets. You can’t get the tickets in such a hurry. Secondly, UNHCR itself takes two months before deciding the refugee status and thirdly, it is extremely expensive and they can’t afford to go by air all the way to Delhi?, said Ms. Nandita Haksar, a
well-known human rights lawyer in India … (full text).
… Arifa and the two children saw Abdur Rehman that night. He could not stand up on his own and his wrists and feet had tell-tale marks on them. He had been tortured. The police had tried to break him into confessing a crime he never committed. And now they had brought his wife and children before him to weaken his will, threatening to kill all of them if he did not confess. Arifa saw the police make Abdur Rehman sign blank sheets of paper, but he refused to confess to something he neither did nor approve of. Arifa and her children were allowed to go home. But the children will forever carry the memory of that scene. Their childhood abruptly ended that night and they entered a world where fear, suspicion and prejudice reign … (full text).
Releasing the committee’s latest report here, one of its members and lawyer, Nandita Haksar, condemned the Special Public Prosecutor, Gopal Subramaniam’s plea for enhanced death sentence. « From the day one it has been a bad case in law and the death sentence has been pronounced on two sentences of a reported telephonic conversation which has been wrongly interpreted, » she told a news conference here. (full text).
In a recent article on the Parliament attack case, the lawyer-activist Nandita Haksar has raised the following issue: « We must demand that the government table a full report on the facts relating to the attack on Parliament. We have a right to know who actually attacked our Parliament. Why have we not made this demand? Out of a sense of nationalism? Are matters of national security best left to the state, no matter what its character? » … (full text).
« Why did no one from the press attempt to get more information than was given out at briefings? Did any newspaper ask its people in Kashmir to make enquiries about anything connected with this case? » (Mukul Dube, May 2005) … Nandita Haksar is reported to have announced that a letter from Untoo, in which he had described the treatment meted out to him by the police, had reached the All-India Defence Committee for Syed Abdul Rehman Geelani … (full text).
links:
Death penalty mostly awarded to dalits and religious minorities;
Geelani’s Guilt, Presumed or Being Fabricated?