An Indian sessions judge has disgraced the country’s judiciary by sentencing celebrated health and civil liberties activist Binayak Sen to life imprisonment. He held Sen guilty of sedition, no less, merely for passing on to others letters written by a suspected Maoist imprisoned in central India’s Chhattisgarh state, called Narayan Sanyal. Even this minor charge wasn’t established beyond reasonable doubt.
The trial followed the kangaroo court model – of reaching a predetermined verdict by substituting suspicion, surmise or conjecture for substantive evidence. The judgment has been condemned the world over by conscientious citizens – not least because Sen embodies the public conscience and civic courage.