Stephen McCutcheon

February 21, 2007

from: http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=21023

Long Rider Daniel Robinson has recently been imprisoned in India for the ‘gross and negligent’ act of stumbling across the Indian border to escape starvation and death whilst on spiritual pilgrimage across the Himalayas from China. To figure this was ever his intention is wrong and reckless. To think perhaps he was naïve in what he got himself into would be the correct interpretation.

One Year ago, Daniel Robinson, 38, set off from England for China bound to undertake a 3000km journey he’d only dreamed about and would probably only understand once he’d finished. Daniel was about to follow the legendary Tea Horse trail from Xishuangbanna in Yunnan Province to Lhasa in Tibet and onwards to Nepal. The trail he followed can only be known by the hardships described by the few people who have survived it.

The Silk Road might be more famous, but the Tea Horse trail is only more misunderstood. Since the Seventh Century AD, bricks of tea have been transported across the Himalayas into Tibet to supply an ever growing demand for what was a daily staple of Tibet life. Tea couldn’t be grown in the harsh conditions of the Tibetan interior and the Tea Horse (Cha Ma) trail was vital to the life and survival of the Tibetan people.

Open your mind, feel what life has to offer, cease the endless drone of office life and experience another world. It doesn’t take much to appreciate why Daniel undertook the Tea Horse trial route in April, 2006. Accompanying a group of Tibetans as far as Lhasa, Daniel continued on his own into the heart of the Tibetan Winter. A taste of Tibet is more than most people ever get, but to really experience it is to dance with the impossible.

Daniel faced hardship after hardship as Winter closed in and only his dogged determination against failure drove him on. Altitude, precipitous gorges, rapids and sheer isolation all played the field against him but still he continued. Things went from bad to worse as the altitude increased and the horses became ill. One of Daniel’s mares was also in foal, he was suffering from the elevation and putting his horses’ well-being before his own, the explorer headed into India.

Reaching a military area on the Indian border, Daniel handed himself over willingly to the first Indian authorities he met. He was suffering from “altitude sickness pneumonia, malnutrition and a kidney infection. Though initially welcomed, he was later arrested, interrogated for two months and threatened with 2 years imprisonment if he denied his ‘guilt.’ That was October 2006. Whereas the authorities no longer believe that Daniel is a ‘Chinese spy’ he has been held on trial and sentenced to one year imprisonment for entering India illegally. This is an absolute travesty of injustice and a mockery of human rights in South Asia.

Daniel’s health is currently in bad health and declining. He is asthmatic and yet shares a cell with twenty chain smoking inmates. He was refused a lawyer until his daughter was able to visit him in December, two months after his arrest. The British Embassy in Delhi has done little to help Robinson and has only visited him once. They say his location his too remote!

There is now an international outcry to release Daniel as soon as possible as his health declines by the day. The Long Riders Guild together with Daniel’s family and hundreds of global supporters are currently organizing a legal team in India to secure Dan’s release and an international petition has been organized to show support for Daniel and persuade the Indian court to reverse its decision. At the least we can all appreciate what Daniel has accomplished and certainly understand his actions given the circumstances he was in.

The adventurer may have been foolish to enter India without permission but his actions were not totally unreasonable and I ask everyone reading this to sign the petition calling to ‘Free Dan’ and see this ridiculous piece of injustice reversed. Daniel has an appeal on the 01st March 07 and Daniels case lies in part on the success of this petition.

Ask yourself why are there so many people around the world reacting at a travesty such as this. Simple. This case is a gross over reaction to what amounts to nothing more than a desperate traveler forced by desperate measures to save his life and those of his horses under exceptional circumstances. Not only do I believe that it wasn’t Dan Robinson’s intention to break the law but also that the magistrate concerned in his trial was a petty small minded and ‘nationalistic’ judge who believed his was setting a precedent for foreigners who may stray into Indian territory. Does the magistrate concerned really believe that India is the only country that people illegally enter? Does he/she really think that Daniel’s case is likely to happen again anytime soon?

The magistrate has shown nothing more than just how narrow minded, backwards and paranoid India’s legal system can be. The concerned trial magistrate could have done wonders for India’s PR by rescuing the weary traveler but instead he has only shown how backwards India still is.

The debate in India is often about how India compares with the rest of the world in GDP and various professional fields and it’s true there are suitable comparisons. Yet the actions of this capricious judge in handing down a one year imprisonment for what shouldn’t amount to more than a reprimand, shows just how much India is still in the deep freeze and exactly how far behind the rest of the world she really is.

Take Action!

Sign the Petition to release Daniel Robinson today at http://www.freedan.co.uk. You can also read more about this case on the latter website as well as on the Long Riders Guild site at http://www.thelongridersguild.com/word05.htm.

Update: Dan has been moved to the less Remote Haridwar Jail now but his condition has still not improved. His appeal date is still set for 01 March 07. The effort to get him released quickly continues