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Asia
亚洲板块
Human rights in India
印度的人权
Father, who art in prison
我们在监狱的父
An 84-year-old activist perishes awaiting trial
一名84岁的激进分子在等待审判中死去
Slow justice may be no justice, but a slowly unfolding tragedy remains no less a tragedy. When police charged Father Stan Swamy with terrorism and threw him in jail last October, friends of the Jesuit priest and human-rights activist feared for his health. They were right to worry. Prison wardens denied Father Stan, as he was known, in his 80s and shaking from Parkinson's disease, the use of a straw and sippy-cup from which to drink water until the press raised a fuss.
迟到的正义或许不是正义，但缓慢展开的悲剧仍是悲剧。去年10月，当警察以恐怖主义罪名指控神父斯坦·斯瓦米并将他投入监狱时，这位耶稣会牧师和人权活动家的朋友担心他的健康。他们的担心是对的。众所周知，斯坦神父已经80多岁了，患有帕金森氏症，全身发抖，而监狱看守不让斯坦神父使用吸管和吸管杯喝水，直到媒体引起了骚动。
Judges turned down repeated pleas for bail, even as his health declined and India entered a second, ferocious wave of covid-19 in the spring. They insisted that since he was charged under special terrorism laws, this frail old man with no criminal record, who had devoted his life to helping remote tribal peoples, must somehow represent a danger to the republic. In May Father Stan, now unable to feed himself or walk, was finally allowed to visit a private hospital. Doctors promptly diagnosed covid-19. Soon he was on a ventilator. On July 5th, as yet another judge was set to hear yet another bail plea, he died.
尽管斯坦神父的健康状况不断恶化，今年春天印度又出现了第二波新冠疫情，法官仍多次拒绝了他的保释请求。他们坚持认为这位没有犯罪记录且一生致力于帮助偏远的部落人民的虚弱老人由于是在特殊的恐怖主义法律下被起诉的，所以一定会对共和国构成某种威胁。到了5月，斯坦神父已经吃不了饭也走不了路，于是终于获准到一家私人医院就诊。医生很快诊断出他患了新冠，很快就只能靠呼吸机来过活。7月5日，就在另一名法官准备审理另一项保释请求时，他死了。
The death of an "undertrial", as India calls people who are yet to be found guilty of anything but languish in jail nonetheless, is not normally news. After all, they make up more than two-thirds of the country's prison population. Even the death of detainees accused, like Father Stan, under the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), seldom raises eyebrows. In January Kanchan Nanaware, a 38-year-old tribal activist, died during her sixth year awaiting trial as a "terrorist".
在印度，那些尚未被判有罪但却在监狱里备受煎熬的人被称为“候审者”，而候审者的死亡在印度已经不是什么新闻了。毕竟，他们占了这个国家监狱人口的三分之二以上。即使是在严厉的《非法活动防止法》下，被指控的被拘留者的死亡，比如斯坦神父，也很少引起关注。今年一月，38岁的部落活动家Kanchan Nanaware在她作为“恐怖分子”等待审判的第六年里去世了。
译文由可可原创，仅供学习交流使用，未经许可请勿转载。
