Mp Describes Sikh Extremists' ‘reign Of Terror'

[lovekhalistan]

JIM BROWN

Canadian Press

November 21, 2007 at 4:45 PM EST

OTTAWA — Liberal MP Ujjal Dosanjh says he and others who spoke out against Sikh extremism in the 1980s faced a “reign of terror” that included beatings, arson and threats of kidnapping and death — and the rest of Canadian society didn't seem to care.

Testifying at the Air India inquiry Wednesday, Mr. Dosanjh said most mainstream politicians and police officers viewed the problem as an internal dispute among immigrants, with no consequences for anybody else.

“I believe that the institutions of our society were unable to understand or comprehend it to any great degree at that time and were not able to deal with it,” he told the inquiry headed by former Supreme Court justice John Major.

“We were left to fend for ourselves.”

Mr. Dosanjh, then a human rights activist and lawyer in private practice, went so far as to write directly to then-prime minister Brian Mulroney, calling his attention to the escalating violence.

The letter was dispatched in April 1985 just two months before Air India Flight 182 was bombed with the loss of 329 lives — but it went unanswered.

Though he steered clear of laying personal blame on Mr. Mulroney or any other public figure, Mr. Dosanjh said the overall impression among moderate Sikhs was inescapable.

“We felt abandoned by the political leaders, by the government . . . . We felt that nobody really cared very much.”

Mr. Dosanjh was brutally beaten in 1985 by a man believed to be acting on behalf of the extremist groups he had repeatedly denounced.

A suspect was eventually charged, but Crown lawyers warned the evidence was weak and asked Mr. Dosanjh if he really wanted them to go ahead with the prosecution. He said he did and the man was acquitted — only to be convicted years later in the shooting of a visiting Punjabi cabinet minister on Vancouver Island.

Mr. Dosanjh insisted he harboured no bitterness over the failed prosecution, but he did offer one pointed observation: “The investigation left a lot to be desired in the way it was done.”

The incident did nothing to halt a budding political career, as Mr. Dosanjh went on to become NDP attorney-general and then premier of British Columbia before jumping to the federal Liberals.

He stressed Wednesday that he wasn't accusing anyone of conscious racial discrimination in the investigation of his own case, or of similar attacks on others, or of the bombing of Air India.

“The vast majority of (Canadians) are fair, just and compassionate,” he said. “If they weren't that, I'd never be elected in the first place.”

He added, however, that he'd be “less than candid” if he didn't admit to sharing a belief — widespread among Indo-Canadians — that many of his fellow citizens had a cultural blind spot about what was going on before the Air India bombing.

The attitude of the general public, said Mr. Dosanjh, seemed to be that beatings, threats and bombings “weren't really happening to Canadians — they were happening to some brown guys that were arguing with each other that we don't understand.”

Mr. Dosanjh also maintained that, although the matter has faded from the headlines in most parts of the country, the climate in the Sikh community has not improved in the last 20 years.

“The fear and the reign of terror is still there,” he said, noting that he received e-mailed death threats as recently as last summer — including one that denounced him as a “blood traitor.”

Police and prosecutors have told him the threats are too vague, and the prospect of conviction too slim, to try to bring charges under current law, he said.

That assertion has led Mr. Dosanjh to campaign for amendments to the Criminal Code to strengthen provisions against hatemongering and incitement to violence.

The latest threats came after he was publicly critical of a parade in the Vancouver suburb of Surrey last spring where Talwinder Singh Parmar — the suspected mastermind of the Air India bombing who was shot dead by Indian police in 1992 — was held up as a “martyr” to the cause of an independent Sikh homeland.

A number of federal and provincial politicians, including some Liberals, attended the event, although Mr. Dosanjh charitably suggested that his colleagues probably didn't understand the political motives behind the parade.

He did express disappointment, however, that few stepped forward to voice criticism after media reports pointed out that many participants had openly worn the insignia of banned terrorist groups.

“If we can't apprehend them or convict them, then at least we can denounce them,” Mr. Dosanjh told reporters after his testimony. “And part of that denunciation has to come from politicians.”

[N30S1NGH]

this dosang guy, looks for excuses to defame sikhs but on a same token what you expect when our soo called leaders put talwinder singh parmar who was nothing but either fanatic with terrorist intent or Goi agent according to soft target held him as "matyr".

Next time peace of advise, dont let these commitee members who have twisted attitude of (one man terrorist is other man freedom fighter) represent sikhs in mainstream.

[S1ngh]

I wonder why this guy in past kept winning votes of punjabis in bc area even after knowing of his way of spewing hatred against general sikh community?

[OhTwadi]

.

[S1ngh]

I am looking at it by neutral point of view and i still don't understand.. To me i get to the point that its most likely ppl who vote for such guy are the ones who don't much of their own history..

[SaRpAnCh]

SHAHEED JATHEDHAR TALWINDER SINGH PARMAR AMAR REHEH

Babbar Khalsa International had no hand in the bomb attacks all the work of Indian Intelligence,fools like Dosanjh are pets of New Delhi,like a few MP's we have here in the UK, the dead Piara Khabra and now Virinder Sharma

watch this video spread it everywhere

http://www.mojoflix.com/Download/22178/1/T...ndia-Canada.wmv

and these

Part1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Al2sWyjlpRw...ted&search=

Part2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jfFLQkZOEk...ted&search=

Part3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0_ZRv15iCE...ted&search=

[SaRpAnCh]

old topic is similar - http://www.sikhsangat.com/index.php?showto...28501&st=48

[SaRpAnCh]

ONLY WHEN WE GET KHALISTAN THE SOLUTION TO ALL OUR ECONOMIC,SOCIAL,POLITICAL,RELIGIOUS STRUGGLES WILL THIS ISSUE BE RESOLVED

[nanosecond]

Namstang u should join the likes of Ujjal Dosanjh

[proactive]

I wonder why this guy in past kept winning votes of punjabis in bc area even after knowing of his way of spewing hatred against general sikh community?

The blame lies in disunity and the partibaazi attitude that many Sikhs have. If one Gurdwara committee supports one guy then you can be your bottom dollar the other committee will support his opponent. People like Dosanjh make use of this knowing that even though he knows nothing about Sikhism and probably follows some kind of communist style atheism, he can rely on his friends in the committees to support him. The common Sikhs just see an 'apna' in the elections and would vote for him rather than a Gora. Then there's the usual non-participation of Keshdhari Sikhs or alternative Sikh candidates to the likes of Dosanjh. To the Gora establishment he can get votes by presenting himself as a 'modern' Sikh compared to the 'extremist' Keshdharis. That's why people like him have an interest in prepetuating the myth that Sikhs brought down Air India and that's why accepting the verdicts of the court would be political suicide for these people. They create 'extremist' Sikh bogeymen in order to keep their seats. Dosanjh has made his political life based on some supposed beating he got in 1985. He recently tried to gain more mileage to his flagging career by saying that he received 'death threats' when he spoke against the Nagar Kirtan in Surrey. What is needed is for keshdhari youth to enter the political arena and break the stranglehold that the communist types like Dosanjh have on the community. While the rest of the world has thrown these communist types into the dustbin of history we Sikhs still have them around our necks doing their worst to sabotage the Sikh cause and hurt the Sikh image at every opportunity.