Anand Jon. Syed Haris Ahmed. Ehsanul Sadequee. The first is the Indian born fashion designer (who’ve we’ve covered on Sepia before) convicted of one count of rape and 15 counts of sexual assault and sentenced yesterday to 59 plus years in prison. The second is a Pakistani-born American who was convicted of conspiring to commit terrorist acts back in June and who is set to be sentenced September 15 along with the third man, a Bangladeshi American. Besides the fact that these are three brown men accused and convicted of disparate bad deeds, they do share another thing in common – they chose to represent themselves in court.

First, Anand Jon. This case has been drama from the start. In July, after his request for a new trial was overruled, Jon fired his entire defense team and took responsibility for his own defense. While he read law books in a prison cell, his mother, sister and various supporters staged vigils for his release. And even after yesterday’s conviction, his family is continuing to press the Indian government to intervene in the case. Continue reading →

We have been getting several tips about the conviction of a Sri Lankan journalist, J.S. Tissainayagam, who has written articles critical of the Sri Lankan government for a magazine. Tissinayagam has been sentenced to 20 years in prison under Sri Lanka’s emergency laws:

J. S. Tissainayagam, editor of the North Eastern Monthly magazine, wrote articles highly critical of a government military offensive against Tamil Tiger rebels who had controlled a large chunk of Sri Lanka’s north. The government decisively defeated the Tigers in a bloody final battle on a strip of beach in northern Sri Lanka in May.

Mr. Tissainayagam was arrested in 2008 and charged under Sri Lanka’s powerful emergency laws, which were enacted in response to the Tamil Tiger insurgency. The insurgents, members of the Hindu Tamil minority, sought a separate state from Sri Lanka’s Buddhist, Sinhalese majority. Prosecutors argued that Mr. Tissainayagam had received money and other support from the Tamil Tigers in exchange for writing articles critical of the government. Mr. Tissainayagam has repeatedly denied this.

As is often the case with local journalists in conflict zones, Mr. Tissainayagam’s reporting reflected the prevailing point of view of the minority to which he belonged, but the government argued his work went further. (link)

I don’t know about the supposed evidence that Tissainayagam ever took money directly from the LTTE, or gave money to them. It’s very difficult, from this distance, to know whether there is any validity to that. Obviously, if you’re critical of the Sri Lankan government you’re likely to be extremely skeptical about that part of the story. By contrast, if you’re critical primarily of the LTTE, you might wonder where the funding for Tissainayagam’s magazine, North Eastern Monthly came from. Continue reading →

I recently came across the news that, in Delhi, for the first time in many years, the number of girls born was higher than the number of boys.

Having long campaigned against a cultural discrimination towards baby girls which has led to a growth in the aborting of female foetuses, campaigners said figures, which showed that in 2008 1,004 girls were born for every 1,000 boys, could mark a break-through.

Dr Dharm Prakash of the Indian Medical Association, which ran a campaign against aborting girl foetuses, said: “The community has responded to our request that girls should be born.” Selective abortion has been illegal for years, but the practice remains rife. There are often reports of police raiding clinics where such operations are performed. In 2007, police in Gurgaon, a satellite city of Delhi, arrested a doctor after the remains of up to 35 foetuses were discovered in his clinic. The government has estimated that up to 10 million girls have been killed, before or immediately after birth, by their parents over the past 20 years.

In Delhi, some credit for the turn-around has been given to the local government’s so-called Ladli scheme. Under this project, the government deposits 10,000 rupees (£125) on the the birth of a baby girl and makes subsequent payments as she passes through school. The money is used for further education or to pay for a wedding and setting up home. (link)

In total, the Delhi government is committing to spend Rs. 1 Lakh (~$2000) to support families that give birth to girls. As I understand it, the program is limited to lower income families.

Livemint raises questions about whether the “Ladli” program, which was only initiated in the spring of 2008 itself, could have become so instantly successful. In a way, it would be even better if it wasn’t the government-financed program, as that might suggest that behaviors were starting to change on their own, at least in Delhi.

For the curious, here is the Delhi government’s web page outlining the guidelines for the Ladli scheme.

(See Abhi’s previous post for grim statistics on female foeticide in India, and indeed, around the world.) Continue reading →