{"id":15304,"date":"2018-07-13T00:09:41","date_gmt":"2018-07-13T00:09:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/151.106.38.4\/2018\/07\/13\/campaign-for-7-christians-crosses-50000\/"},"modified":"2018-07-13T00:09:41","modified_gmt":"2018-07-13T00:09:41","slug":"campaign-for-7-christians-crosses-50000","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/2018\/07\/13\/campaign-for-7-christians-crosses-50000\/","title":{"rendered":"Campaign for 7 Christians crosses 50,000"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img src=\/old_site\/><\/p>\n<div><span style=\"font-size: 13.3333px;\">On the threshold of the 10th anniversary of the orchestrated attack on Christians in Kandhamal district of Odisha in August 2008, the online signature campaign demanding the release of seven innocent Christians, languishing in jail since then, crossed the milestone of 50,000 signatures on July 11.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-size: 13.3333px;\">While thanking all those have joined the online campaign at www.release7innocents.com, journalist author Anto Akkara who has been spearheading the campaign, in a press statement on July 12, called for more signatures for the release of the seven \u2013 six of them illiterates, including one mentally challenged individual.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-size: 13.3333px;\">Akkara who has chronicled Kandhamal\u2019s bloodshed and travesty of justice launched the online signature campaign on March 3, 2016 by bringing the illiterate wives of the innocents to New Delhi for the launch. The campaign&nbsp; was launched by veteran journalist Kuldip Nayar in the presence of former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijay Singh, Oscar Fernandes, Annie Raja of CPI, Swami Agnivesh, Shabanm Hashmi and others.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-size: 13.3333px;\">The seven Christians \u2013 Bhaskar Sunamajhi, Bijay Kumar Sanseth, Budhadeb Nayak, Durjo Sunamajhi, Gornath Chalenseth, Munda Badamajhi and Sanathan Badamajhi have been languishing in jail following the mysterious murder of Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati on the Janmashtami night &#8211; August 23, 2008.&nbsp;<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-size: 13.3333px;\">The press statement said that tollowing the Hindu leader\u2019s murder, nearly 100 Christians have been killed and 300 churches and 6,000 Christian houses plundered and torched in unabated violence that continued for weeks. Hindu masses &#8211; most of them illiterate &#8211; had been incited to take revenge on Christians after the slain Swami\u2019s body was paraded across Kandhamal for two days.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-size: 13.3333px;\">A third judge of the trial court &#8211; after two judges were transferred \u2013 convicted the accused Christians to life imprisonment for the Swami\u2019s murder in 2013 on the basis of a fabricated Christian conspiracy theory. Yet, the hearing on the appeal of the innocent convicts has been pending in the Odisha High Court.&nbsp;<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-size: 13.3333px;\">Each online signature generates three instant emails to the Chief Justice of India, President of India and Chairman of the NHRC. On the second anniversary of the campaign, it has been modified to generate a fourth email to the High Court of Odisha as well.<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-size: 13.3333px;\">The author laid bare the Kandhamal fraud and travesty of justice with his investigative book \u2018Who Killed Swami Laxmanananda?\u2019 that has been widely hailed by national celebrities and the media.<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On the threshold of the 10th anniversary of the orchestrated attack on Christians in Kandhamal district of Odisha in August 2008, the online signature campaign demanding the release of seven innocent Christians, languishing in jail since then, crossed the milestone of 50,000 signatures on July 11. While thanking all those have joined the online campaign [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[679],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-nagaland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15304\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}