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Dr. Binayak Sen Released on Bail

By Kate Dube, volunteer researcher for A Worker’s Guide to Health and Safety.

On May 25, the Indian Supreme Court allowed Dr. Binayak Sen to post bail and go home for the first time since his imprisonment on trumped up charges in Chhattisgarh state over 2 years ago. Dr. Sen is internationally respected for his work in poor communities for health and social justice. He is vice president of People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), co-founder of the rural community health organization RUPANTAR, and winner of the 2008 Jonathan Mann award for Global Health and Human Rights. Read more about his unjustified arrest and the international campaign to free him here. 

While the release of Dr. Sen from jail is an important advance, the very serious charges against him have not been dropped. The shadow of a prolonged legal battle and trial still looms over Dr. Sen, his family and friends.

In an emotional interview with Crises Magazine 4 days after his release, Sen expressed his amazement regarding the activity of the broad international solidarity movements working on his behalf. “I cannot believe so many people beyond borders have supported me” he said with tears of joy in his eyes, referring to the 22 Nobel laureates who petitioned for his release as well as the “Free Dr. Binayak Sen” Facebook group of over 2000 members.

However, in the same interview he emphasized that his release on bail is a small event in comparison with the widespread violations of liberty and human rights which persist both within and beyond Chhattisgarh. “I consider myself lucky to generate so much worldwide support for my case, but what about others? There are hundreds more languishing in jails who are in a similar situation who do not have even have legal aid let alone the support. There are thousands who are being displaced from their land and their access to natural resources across India.”

In recognition of this, even though Dr. Sen’s case is not closed, the “Release Dr. Binayak Sen Committee” has officially changed its name to “The Committee For The Defense Of Democratic Rights In Chhattisgarh”  to address the broader issue of social injustices in Chhattisgarh state such as the recent state-sanctioned demolition of the Vanvasi Chetna Ashram.

“As human rights workers,” Sen has declared, “we do not condone any form of violence. We feel this whole cycle of violence — either by the government or by the Maoists — is counter-productive, and political engagement is needed to delegitimise violence-based solutions.”

Please go to http://www.freebinayaksen.org for information about the human rights of health workers in South Asia. Visit http://www.binayaksen.net to follow his case and the cases of his co-accused, who have yet to be granted bail.

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March 5, 2020

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Update from Puerto Rico

It's been one month since Hurricane Maria ripped through Puerto Rico, yet much of the island is still without basic necessities. People are struggling to cope without clean water, passable roads, electricity, medicines and other supplies. Amidst this backdrop, stories of residents' and aid workers creative efforts are beginning to emerge.

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Working with flood victims? We can help.

This summer we have seen devastating floods around the world, in record numbers. Nearly 41 million people have been affected by flooding since June, in the Caribbean, Southeast Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America. The immediate destruction of these floods have already caused the death of thousands of people from injury, drowning and electrocution.

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Join Hesperian for a conversation with Dr. Julie Cliff

Please join Hesperian and Dr. Julie Cliff for a wide-ranging conversation about health in Mozambique on Wednesday, September 27th at 6:30pm. Dr.Cliff has lived and worked in Mozambique for over 40 years, leading the epidemiology department at the Ministry of Health and the infectious diseases unit at Maputo Central Hospital, Mozambique's primary teaching hospital.

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Read, teach, repeat

Tomorrow's Stars provides scholarships, libraries, and other support for students in Elmina, Ghana who face significant barriers to completing their education. To augment classroom learning with lessons on life skills, volunteer Sue Ron Gonzalez helped form a girls club in the rural farming village Abrem Essiam. After searching for practical and empowering information to share with the girls, she finally found Health Actions for Women at a gathering in San Francisco with Sarah Shannon, Hesperian's Executive Director.

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Four years later

Four years ago the world watched as 1,134 people lost their lives in the deadly Rana Plaza collapse in Bangladesh. In the wake of the disaster, 200 brand name clothing retailers responded to public pressure by signing on to the more effective Bangladesh Accord on Fire and Building Safety and the less effective Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety. Both agreements bound the participating retailers to fund safety inspections and improvements at the Bangladeshi factories that supply them with product.

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Your suitcase isn’t ready til you’ve packed these

The influence of policies created by the United States and Canada is strongly felt in Honduras, magnifying poverty, inequality, insecurity, and violence in the country. In response to this interference, organizations from the US and Canada have formed the Honduras Solidarity Network (HSN) to support Honduran activists and community leaders in their commitment to further social justice.

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Training programs use Where There Is No Doctor

We receive stories from people around the world who use Where There Is No Doctor and Hesperian's other titles in their training and primary health care programs. Health workers appreciate the books' approach to sensitive or "taboo" issues, the clearly-written information their patients or trainees can understand, and the adaptable, practical solutions to a variety of health problems.

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What Filipino Women Want

Information on women's health, and especially family planning, can be difficult to find in the Philippines due to governmental and religious opposition. But access will soon become easier when Hesperian Health Guides releases Where Women Have No Doctor in Filipino on the HealthWiki. Together with our Philippine partner Likhaan, this edition is being updated to reflect current information on a range of women's health issues and produced for online viewing.

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War Kills in More Ways than One

The war in Yemen that has already killed thousands through bombing and starvation is now killing thousands more with one of the worst cholera outbreaks on record, over 300,000 reported cases. South Sudan, already struggling with fighting among armed factions and the threat of famine is now also facing a cholera outbreak.

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Shining a light on women’s health

Recently, we lost Simone Veil, a Holocaust survivor who became a French politician and advocate for women's health. Veil's message was that women forced into a corner by laws and social pressures are left with dangerous health choices, neglecting their safety or trusting the wrong people, and ultimately risking their lives.

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When a bug bite isn’t just a bug bite

After last year's frightening Zika outbreak, it comes as welcome news that reports of new cases have slowed down in areas of Brazil and the Caribbean. While cases in Florida also seem to be reducing, the CDC recently reported a larger breadth of the Zika-carrying mosquito in the south than previously known.

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Preparing students for success

Every year a new group of nursing students from the Boston College Connell School of Nursing Global Health Initiative travel to Central America equipped with the clinical knowledge they learned from their textbooks and a copy of Donde no hay doctor (Spanish edition of Where There Is No Doctor). Ronna E. Krozy, EdD, RN, who has led the program since 1991, first to Ecuador and since 2005 to Nicaragua, has found Where There Is No Doctor to be the most important resource her students have.

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