Kolkata, West Bengal

A press release from Cinema of resistance, Jan Sanskruti Manch and Gana Sanskriti Parishad:

On the evening of 24th September, filmmaker Soumitra Dastidar was suddenly informed that the premiere screening of his documentary 'Musalmaner Katha' slated for 30th September in the state-owned Nandan-3 (jointly organized by the Films Division and Cine Central) has been cancelled. Organizers cited denial of permission by the police and lack of a censor certificate, although it has been pointed out that censor clearance is not a prerequisite for screening a documentary at Nandan 3.

Later in the night, two police personnel introducing themselves as enforcement branch officials paid a surprise visit to the filmmaker's home and demanded a copy of the film. They hunted through his books and earlier work, and asked leading questions.

This is clearly a concerted crackdown to silence the film's voice, by an intolerant state-police apparatus. The film deals with the socio-economic plight of the Muslim community in Bengal over the ages, and naturally has put successive governments in the dock for their negligence of the minority community's distress. Among several contemporary Muslim voices interviewed in the film, is IPS officer Nazrul Islam, who earlier bore the brunt of state intolerance over one of his books on a similar topic. Many interviewees in the film have spoken of 'domination by the (so called) upper caste Hindu population who far outnumber the Muslims, ingrained poverty, general lack of exposure to modern educational facilities and, perhaps most significant of all, being victims of institutional communalism and prejudice', says a description on the film's website.

We strongly condemn this crackdown, and demand that the film be allowed to screen as slated. This is an outright attack on the constitutional rights of the filmmaker. As incidents of assaults on freedom of expression are on an alarming rise, it is imperative to resist cultural fascism of all forms.

sd/- Kasturi Basu (for Cinema of Resistance, Jan Sanskriti Manch) and Nitish Roy (for Gana Sanskriti Parishad)