Two-time Academy Award-nominated documentary filmmaker from Australia, David Bradbury, who was travelling to India with his two children was stopped from entering the country at the Chennai Airport. Although his son and daughter were permitted to stay, Bradbury was deported after a 24-hour long detention on September 10, The Wire reports.
The documentary filmmaker was allegedly stopped at the immigration, detained and denied access to the Australian embassy. He was neither allowed to access his medicines nor use the toilet.
Bradbury claimed his detention and subsequent deportation was connected to his film on the Kudankulam nuclear plant. Bradbury had made the film while visiting India in October 2012 along with his wife and then three-year-old son. They were on a tourist visa and Bradbury was a member of the jury for the Mumbai International Film Festival.
India’s biggest nuclear power plant, Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant was facing immense protests from the local fisherfolk with whom David Bradbury was in solidarity. A month before the filmmaker visited the protesting village, a villager was shot dead by the police.
As many as thousands of protestors had marched towards the plants, to which the police replied with violence. Many of the protesting villagers and activists, who feared a potential mishap in the plant could destroy millions of lives, were arrested. Most of them were charged with sedition.
