"J'accuse ...!" ( "I accuse...!") was an open letter published on 13 January 1898 in the newspaper L'Aurore by the renowned French writer Émile Zola ( author of the famous novel ' Nana ', etc )..
In his letter addressed to the President of France Félix Faure, Zola accused the French government of anti-Semitism and the unlawful jailing of Alfred Dreyfus, an innocent Jewish French Army General Staff officer who was sentenced to lifelong penal servitude for alleged espionage for Germany, and sent to Devil's Island, a horrible penal colony in French Guina, near South America, where he was kept in prison for 5 years.
Zola pointed out grave judicial errors and lack of serious evidence, and in fact it was later found that the real culprit who did espionage for Germany was one Major Esterhazy, and that Dreyfus was innocent.
The letter was printed on the front page of the newspaper and caused a huge stir in France and abroad. Zola was prosecuted for and found guilty of libel on 23 February 1898. To avoid imprisonment, he fled to England, returning home in June 1899.
Other pamphlets proclaiming Dreyfus's innocence included Bernard Lazare's A Miscarriage of Justice: The Truth about the Dreyfus Affair (November 1896). Dreyfus was later exonerated of the charges and reinstated in the army.
As a result of the popularity of Zola's letter, even in the English-speaking world, 'J'accuse!' has become a common generic expression of outrage over punishment of someone innocent. .
I make the same accusation against the Indian establishment. Under the garb of combating terrorism it has jailed hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent persons, like Zaibunnisa Kazi, Devinderpal Singh Bhullar, etc particularly of the minority communities ( Muslims, Sikhs, etc ), often on the basis of fake, concocted or weak and unreliable evidence.
J'accuse
