Worker's Party of Belgium

Partij van de Arbeid van België

Parti du Travail de Belgique

Boulevard M. Lemonnier 171

1000 Brussels

1st Anniversary Of The Arrest Of Comrade Gaurav: This Offence To All International Judicial Standards Must End !

Dear comrades,

On behalf of the Central Committee of the Worker's Party of Belgium we send the following request to the new prime minister of India to end immediately the illegal imprisonment of comrade Gaurav that has now lasted for one year. In march, comrade Gaurav communicated an appeal to an international delegation that 'the peoples of Europe -once the birthplace of communism- would break their silence and unite with the revolutionaries of South-Asia'. In this way we hope to respond -modestly- to this appeal.

This is the content of our letter from the 15th of august 2004 to the prime minister of the Republic of India

Honourable prime minister Manmohan Singh,

On behalf of the Worker's Party of Belgium, we want to draw your attention to the fact that the detention in your country of the Nepalese citizen, mr. Chandra Prakash Gajurel (alias 'comrade Gaurav'), is nearing his first anniversary.

Indeed, one year ago, on the 20th of august 2003, Mr. Chandra Prakash Gajurel, a Political Bureau member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), has been taken in custody when he tried to leave from Chennai Airport of Madras for Europe.

At the occasion of this sad 'anniversary' we clearly declare: this imprisonment for twelve months of Mr. Chandra Prakash Gajurel for the only reason of travelling under a false identity -a minor administrative delict inspired by purely political and not criminal reasons - is an unacceptable offence to all international judicial standards. Democratic forces all over the world can not

tolerate that some-one can be imprisoned -more over without trial - for a period that already lasts longer than the maximum penalty the Indian law foresees for falsification of travel documents. As progressive and democratic people we can not understand how your Republic can still claim to be the 'largest democracy of the world' and at the same time violate basic democratic standards in the case of Mr. Gajurel.

We are even more worried about the situation of mr. Garujel as we learned from an international delegation that visited him in the prison of Chennai in march of this year that he his not only enduring illegal custody but also very bad living conditions (by temperatures of more than 40 ° Celsius).

After the recent general election, your government of the United Progressive Alliance vowed itself to the values of democracy, equity and social justice. In the light your 24th of june-adress to the Nation we had expected that your government would make an end to the illegal custody of mr. Gajurel. But instead of erasing immediately the shame of keeping mr. Gajurel in prison, it continues up until now. Even worse: recent reporting said that there are plans to move Mr. Gajurel to a remote prison from where he could be deported -illegally again- to Nepal. Well knowing his role as a prominent figure of the popular uprising in Nepal your country would then deliberately expose him to torture and even death.

The injust treatment of Mr. Garujel apparently is not an isolated fact. We also protest against the continuing imprisonment of Mr. Mohan Baidhya., better known as comrade Kiran, who was arrested on 29th March 2004 while he was under treatment of his eyes in India. We also complain about the cases of eleven other cadres and militants of the CPN (m), including five Central Committee-members and one central advisor, who were arrested in Patna on 2nd of

June 2004 although there are no charges of crime in India against them.

Honourable prime minister, we urge your government and the Indian Justice to release immediately mr Gajurel. And also mr. Baidhya and the other arrested respons If they don't do this, the whole progressive world would be obliged to draw the following dishonourable conclusion: the new Indian government, as well as the former, behaves in the case of the Nepalese revolutionary communists as an accomplice of the feudal, militaristic royal dictatorship of Nepal. We pledge you to free your country from the bad reputation of arrests and deportations of political prisoners on behalf of this regime.

Therefore, honourable prime minister of the Republic of India, we request you to urgently release mr. Chandra Prakash Gajurel and let him continue his commitment for the sake of democracy and social progress in his country and the region.

On behalf of the Central Committee of the Worker's Party of Belgium,

Boudewijn Deckers, member of the political bureau, and Dr. Kris Merckx