Doctor in jail honoured with Jonathan Mann Award

PROUD MOMENT: Dr Binayak Sen has been given the 2008 Jonathan Mann award

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New Delhi: The 2008 Jonathan Mann award for global health and human rights has been awarded to an Indian prisoner currently in Raipur jail, a doctor and civil rights activist Dr Binayak Sen.

Established in 1999, the award seeks to keep alive the flame of a doctor and activist who worked in trying conditions in Africa.

“Jonathan Mann worked among the AIDS victims. Binayak Sen is the ninth person to receive this award. It has also honoured people in Burma and Congo,” says teacher of Dr Binayak, Dr P Zakaria.

The demands and pleas for the release of Dr Sen have been gathering strength. Arrested last year allegedly for being a conduit between Maoists, a charge that he has consistently denied, Dr Sen has also lost his case for bail in the courts, most crucially in the Supreme Court of India. Booked under the stringent Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act, he was in solitary confinement for some time.

Although the Chhattisgarh government has been successful in removing the doctor from public activity, but have been unable to wipe him out of public consciousness and memory.

The global health council has also written to the Indian government to let Dr Sen travel to receive his award in Washington.

Amnesty International has called him a prisoner of conscience and has demanded a free, open and fair trail.

“We are carrying a campaign in 36 countries. We are also demanding the repeal of the Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act,” says Mukul Sharma from Amnesty International.