Civil rights groups decry conviction of Indian paediatrician who pioneered community health

A court in the eastern Indian state of Chhattisgarh has sentenced to life imprisonment an Indian paediatrician, public health specialist, and human rights activitist, Binayak Sen who is accused of sedition and unlawful activities, but acclaimed in medical circles for his spearheading of community health activities in some of India’s poorest areas.

The additional district sessions court in Raipur, the state capital, convicted Dr Sen, national vice president of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), a leading humans rights organisation in India, of sedition in a case in which the state had accused him of carrying letters for a jailed Maoist leader.

Dr Sen had spent two years in prison on these charges while he was being tried until he …