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The
Network of Women in Media, India (NWMI) strongly
condemns the recent violent attack on Bangladeshi
writer, Taslima Nasreen, in Hyderabad. The attack
highlights the security concerns that writers
in general and women writers in particular face
from fundamentalist forces of all hues.
This
attack was clearly politically motivated - dramatically
executed by politicians masquerading as guardian
angels of a religion, in the full glare of
media attention, at a time when the Greater Hyderabad
Municipal Corporation elections are imminent.
The law-makers were clearly law-breakers in this
instance.
We believe it is also significant, in this context,
that the mob led by the MLAs barged into and violently
disrupted an event at the Press Club. We salute
the
journalists present who risked harm to themselves
to protect Ms. Nasreen and commend the immediate
protests registered by local journalists' organisations.
By
attacking a woman and a champion of women's rights
at a quiet book release function, the fundamentalists
have drawn attention to themselves in an ugly
and desperate manner. The perpetrators are at
large now - having got bail after a token arrest
- and are possibly enjoying the media coverage
they are
receiving.
Unfortunately,
this brand of politics has become all too common
in India today. Both the media and the creative
fields are increasingly under attack from the
forces of intolerance and bigotry. The vandalism
perpetrated at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the
M.S. University in Baroda, the arson committed
at the
offices of Dinakaran and Sun TV in Madurai, etc.,
are other recent examples of this alarming trend.
The
NWMI deplores all such anti-democratic activities
and demands that the laws of the land be applied
to the perpetrators of what are, very clearly,
criminal acts. No one should be above the law
and political considerations should not come in
the way of prosecuting crime whoever the accused
may be.
On
behalf of the NWMI,
Ammu Joseph
R Akhileshwari
Charumathi Supraja
Freny Manecksha
Jyoti Punwani
Kalpana Sharma
Lalitha Iyer
Majira Sarkar
Papu Desi Jhansi
Ranjita Biswas
Rina Mukherji
Rajashri Dasgupta
Soumi Das
Sonal Kellogg
Surekha Sule
Satyavati Kondaveeti
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