Chomsky speaks out against POCO

kolkata: opponents of the west bengal government's efforts to bring a special law against organised crime has found a strong supporter to their cause: noam chomsky. ironically, chomsky, the most renowned living radical intellectual, was felicitated in kolkata by the left front government last month. the association for protection of democratic rights had sent a copy of the draft prevention of organised crime ordinance to chomsky, which he received after returning home in mit, usa.after going through the text, he has e-mailed back promptly. sorry i didn't find out in time, chomsky writes, and expresses surprise that although he learnt about and criticised the central prevention of terrorism ordinance, nobody told him that a similar move was going on even in left-ruled west bengal. i did have a chance in india to talk a few times about poto in interviews, but hadn't heard about this. it wasn't brought up in the few brief news conferences scheduled in calcutta, or in other meetings. chomsky does not agree with chief minister buddhadeb bhattacharjee's repeated assertion that poco had no parallels with poto. on the contrary, he finds it no different not only from poto but from the plethora of preventive detention laws being passed or mooted recently in many countries, including the usa, uk, france, germany and pakistan. there is a plague of such legislation throughout the world, here too, he writes, adding, i haven't yet written about the general phenomenon, though i've talked about it, mainly in interviews. this certainly seems to fit in. and finally, chomsky even calls for resistance to such moves. it's a very dangerous development, and should be resisted everywhere. meanwhile, as the state government claims it has prepared a revised draft for the act which the cabinet has endorsed, the apdr, in a statement on saturday, demanded that the text be made public immediately.