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Human Rights Watch has written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and local authorities in Bangalore about the recent police arrests and mass eviction of transgenders in the city
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said the ongoing harassment of transgenders in Bangalore points to an organised police campaign of ‘social cleansing’, which was both inhuman and illegal, and based on false allegations.
The mass evictions began after the Bangalore police claimed to have captured a “gang of hijras who kidnapped children, castrated them, and forced them into sex work”.
Following the arrests on October 20 and 21 of over 36 transgenders and human rights defenders, the Bangalore police forced around 100 hijras from their homes on November 10, 2008, suggesting a spreading pattern of prejudice-driven violence and abuse in the city, says an HRW release.
“The near-absolute legal and political disenfranchisement of hijras in most parts of India relies in part on myths about criminal and antisocial behaviour as communal characteristics,” says Deepika Nath, researcher with the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights programme at HRW.
“Because of prevailing myths that hijras habitually kidnap young boys, reports of the arrest of two hijras on criminal charges are a convenient excuse to target the entire community without arousing public outcry.”
“Of course, all reports of child abuse should be thoroughly investigated,” says Nath. “But the authorities are also responsible for sorting out fact from prejudice -- and there is no excuse for targeting an entire community as retaliation.”
While the police say it is a crackdown on street crime, the hijra community feels it is being targeted without reason. “We were born in Karnataka; why can’t we live in Karnataka? The owners (of houses) ask us to leave immediately, right then. Where can we go immediately,” says Keerthi, a transgender.
Evicted transgenders told journalists and local sexual rights activists that the police accusations that they engaged in “immoral activities” were unfounded, and that a kidnapping case brought against two members of the community was being used as a pretext for the mass evictions.
The police, for its part, denies responsibility for the evictions, claiming homeowners are evicting hijra tenants because of charges of kidnapping that appear in the media. However, The Hindu, a leading national daily, reports that it has a copy of the notice the police personally served to homeowners.
Campaign for Sexworkers and Sexual Minorities Rights (CSMR), a coalition of activists and human rights organisations has protested against the police’s arbitrary violation of the fundamental right of hijras to live in the city. It has also demanded that the eviction notice be withdrawn.
The police also appears to be targeting local rights activists, including dalits, women’s rights activists and trade unionists who came to the victims’ defence. When asked about this, the police told some activists that they had orders from higher up.
“For the first time we are facing this kind of really shocking brutal police violence. The police is using illegal means to purge Bangalore of hijras. They are spreading the myth that hijras kidnap and castrate children,” says Manohar Elavarthi, an activist with the NGO Sangama.
“These days there are plans to make Bangalore a sundara nagara (beautiful city). Maybe they don’t want kachda (dirt) in this city,” says Revathi, a transgender, and director of Collectivisation.
Source: http://www.hrw.org, November 20, 2008
http://www.ndtv.com, November 2008
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