Memorandum From The International Sikh Community To The Un High Commissioner For Human Rights

[JagtarSinghKhalsa]

MEMORANDUM FROM THE INTERNATIONAL SIKH COMMUNITY

26th March 2007

Louise Arbour

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

SIKHS FROM ACROSS THE WORLD REQUEST ACTION FROM THE UN

Hundreds of Sikhs from across the world gathered yesterday for an international human rights conference and meeting in Langenthal, Switzerland to highlight the problem of religious freedoms. The conference coincided with the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome.

In preparation for today’s activities at the UN Human Rights Council Sikh representatives from over 15 countries across the globe yesterday agreed a number of actions for the Sikh human rights awareness rally outside the UN earlier this morning and the first ever parallel event at the UN titled ‘Respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms – the 60-year experience of the Sikhs’ that was expected to be attended by several hundred in Room XII, Palais des Nations.

This memorandum requests a number of actions from the UN:

UN endorsed international Code of Practice on Sikh articles of faith and separate recognition of the Sikh ‘Qaum’

Sikhs throughout the world are facing increasing difficulties regarding religious freedoms and their visible identity due to a lack of knowledge and ignorance. Sikhism is not only the fifth largest world faith, but Sikhs are also a ‘Qaum’ – a separate Nation of People that continue to experience difficulties undertaking day to day activities.

There is a need for a UN endorsed international Code of Practice recognising Sikhs as a Qaum and acknowledging the Sikh's right to religious freedom and the need to properly protect the Sikh identity and articles of faith at work, in business and in public places.

In devising the Code the UN should consult the newly established International Sikh Advisory Board (ISAB) based in the UK.

Access to Panjab to Amnesty International and the UN Rapporteur on Torture

The UN should demand full access to Panjab to international human rights groups, such as Amnesty International and the UN. The Indian Government has denied Amnesty International access to Panjab for almost 30 years and the UN Rapporteur on Torture has been repeatedly denied entry to investigate in Panjab. Many have concluded that India has much to hide and that it does not want the world to know about the widespread human rights violations against the Sikh community.

UN-led inquiry into the anti-Sikh pogroms of November 1984

What followed the death of Indira Gandhi is the most ruthless and bloody chapter in modern day Sikh history. Thousands of Sikhs in over 130 cities across India were massacred in the most barbaric method of burning. Encouraged by central government Ministers and MPs with the connivance of the police, mobs were assembled to carry out a four day orgy of killings and plunder.

On hearing of the death of his mother Rajiv Gandhi, who was to become the Indian Prime Minister said "Let us teach these bastards (the Sikhs) a lesson" “go and take revenge; no turban should be seen”.

It was no wonder the government controlled television station Doordarshan and All India Radio began broadcasting provocative slogans seeking bloody vengeance, "khoon ka badla khoon se lenge (we will take blood for blood!)". False rumours were spread through the media to incite violence such as - the Sikhs have poisoned the city water supply, a train from Panjab has arrived with dead Hindus and many more.

Sikhs in the Delhi police force were withdrawn and Sikh Soldiers in Delhi were disarmed and confined to barracks. The remaining police not only stood aside and watched as Sikhs were killed but actively participated in the looting and killings.

Sikhs became the target of organised violence with murderous gangs of two to three hundred swarming into Sikh homes, hacking the occupants to pieces, chopping off the heads of children, raping women, tying Sikh men to tyres set aflame with kerosene and pulling Sikh passengers from public transport to be lynched or burned alive.

The Delhi pogrom has been documented by several civil liberty groups. One report, called ‘Who are the Guilty?’ which remains banned in India mentions the names of 16 important Congress politicians, 13 police officers and 198 others, accused by survivors and eye-witnesses.

It is clear that the Indian Government intended to teach the Sikhs a lesson. This continued even after the attacks stopped with refugee camps being forcibly shut and the lack of assistance to the injured and needy.

The attacks in November 1984 were state sponsored pogroms; designed and led by leading members of the Congress party to inflict as much harm as possible on the Sikh community. It is estimated that over 20,000 Sikhs were killed during the November 1984 genocide. This state sponsored terrorism is the true face of Indian democracy.

It would appear that in India the guilty get off scot-free while the victims continue to suffer in pain, anguish and hardship.

There has never been a detailed and determined independent public investigation by the authorities into the events of November 1984 as they would rather sweep it under the carpet. Commissions that have been organised have been no more than whitewashes and cover ups.

Not a single political leader responsible for the genocide of the Sikhs has been convicted. For over two decades high-ranking members of the Congress party have enjoyed political impunity for this violence.

We call on the UN for an investigation to be set up to investigate the persistent failure of successive Indian Governments to ensure the prosecution of those alleged to be responsible for the killings and destruction.

UN action needed to expose false imprisonment and unfair trials of political prisoners in India

In India approximately 225,000 prisoners are awaiting trial, which is equivalent to 74% of the total prison population. Recent media reports have highlighted the cases of five people held without charge or trial for over 30 years (54 years in one case). Many Sikh political prisoners are unnecessarily being held, either without trial or with false charges and without evidence.

Professor Davinderpal Singh Bhullar's case is one of the most controversial and highest profile death penalty cases in recent Indian history. Almost 12 years earlier Professor Davinderpal Singh Bhullar, a Sikh political activist, was illegally deported from Germany. Davinderpal Singh was handed over to the Indian authorities on the basis that he had nothing to fear on his return to India.

For 12 years Davinderpal Singh has been forced to live with the mistake by the German authorities. He was arrested and put in prison as soon as he landed in Delhi, tortured to obtain a false confession, charged and sentenced to death by hanging for a crime he did not commit.

When Germany deported Davinderpal Singh to a death-penalty prone country it violated the European Convention on Human Rights. After his deportation, the court of appeal in Frankfurt allowed his appeal and said that he should not have been deported as he would face torture, harassment and death in India and were he to re-enter Germany he would be given asylum.

The verdict of the court of appeal in Germany came too late for Davinderpal Singh. However, it has left Germany and the EU with a moral obligation to ensure the threat of the death penalty by India is removed and Davinderpal Singh and other political prisoners that are unnecessarily being held, either without trial or under false charges and without evidence, are released immediately. There are still over one hundred known Sikh political prisoners that are still being held without trial or on fabricated charges.

Following international pressure in support of Davinderpal Singh additional charges were brought against him. However, recently the Professor was acquitted and all charges dropped. The UN should press for an immediate withdrawal of the death sentence imposed and demand a full review of the Professor's case in accordance with international law, under monitoring by UN observers.

UN should demand that India cease its punitive treatment of political and human rights activists

Human rights activists in India have tried to highlight atrocities, including false imprisonment, torture, deaths in custody, extra-judicial executions and disappearances, perpetrated against Sikhs in the last 25 years. One such activist, Jaswant Singh Khalra, visited his family in the UK just before he was disappeared in September 1995.

He was investigating mass cremations of Sikhs, in which an estimated 50,000 Sikhs were arrested, tortured, and murdered, and then their bodies were declared unidentified and secretly cremated. He was arrested by the Punjab Police and subsequently disappeared while in police custody.

An inquiry by the Central Bureau of Investigation reported in July 1996 that nine police officials were responsible for his abduction, and they were subsequently charged with murder. During their trial, which is ongoing, police officers have delayed proceedings and intimidated witnesses, judicial orders have been disregarded, evidence suppressed and members of the Khalra Action Committee (a group of relatives and colleagues formed to pursue investigations into his fate) have themselves suffered intimidation and abuse.

The former Punjab Director-General of Police K P S Gill's direct responsibility for the torture, disappearance and murder of human rights activist Jaswant Singh Khalra has come to light. It is now clear he was murdered in police custody. His body was not given to his family. But no one has been brought to justice for his kidnapping and murder.

Independent investigation into the killing of 38 innocent Sikhs in Kashmir

On 21 March 2000 on the eve of the visit of US President Bill Clinton 38 Sikhs in the village of Chattisinghpora were massacred. Kashmiri militants were blamed for the killings, but it has been shown that the killings were the work of Hindu militants.

Earlier this year former Secretary of State Madeline Albright wrote a book called 'The Mighty and Almighty.' The introduction was written by former President Bill Clinton where he wrote: "During my visit to India in 2000, some Hindu militants decided to vent their outrage by murdering 38 Sikhs in cold blood. If I hadn't made the trip, the victims would probably still be alive. If I hadn't made the trip because I feared what militants might do, I couldn't have done my job as President of the United States.''

President Clinton places the blame squarely on Hindu militants, not on the so-called Kashmiri Muslims that the Indian government tried to blame for the massacre. In 2002, the Washington Times reported that the Indian government finally admitted its responsibility and conceded that the evidence that it used to pin the blame on Kashmiris was false. Reporter Barry Bearak of the New York Times also placed the blame squarely on the Indian government, as did two independent investigations.

UN support for the right of Sikhs to peacefully campaign for the right to self determination and independence

The freedom of Sikhs to exercise their right to self determination is one that many Member States find difficult to raise. A paper has been prepared by the international Sikh community titled "Self determination as a human right and its applicability to the Sikhs". This sets out why Sikhs believe it is legitimate for Sikhs to have the right to self determination and should be free to campaign for an independent sovereign Sikh State.

There must be an open dialogue at the international level with Sikhs on their right to self determination and that the "territorial integrity" of India can not be used as an excuse if politicians believe in the principles that have been established at the UN.

Those that apply the territorial integrity "limitation" to India should remember:

· The limitation only applies where “States conduct themselves in compliance with the principle of equal rights and self-determination" - India opted out of this defence in 1966 when they put down a "reservation" when ratifying the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. India in effect stated in the UN that the right of self determination only applied to people living outside India. France, Germany and the Netherlands objected to the reservation on the grounds self determination must apply to all people. The UN has invited India to withdraw this reservation, but India has neglected to respond. The UN should continue to ask for this reservation to be withdrawn.

· It is now internationally recognised that any government which is oppressive to peoples within its territory may no longer be able to rely on the ground of ‘territorial integrity’ as a limitation on the right of self-determination. India has lost its 'territorial integrity' defence with respect to the self determination of Sikhs given the evidence of the treatment of Sikhs since Indian independence and in particular in the last 25 years.

Organisations supporting the first ever World Sikh Lobby:

1. Akhand Kirtani Jatha

2. American Gurdwara Prabandakh Committee

3. Anti-defamation Sikh Council for Freedom of Khalistan

4. Council of Khalistan (USA)

5. Dal Khalsa

6. Damdami Taksal

7. International Human Rights Organisation

8. International Sikh Youth Federation (Germany)

9. Italy Sikh Council

10. Khalistan Affairs Center

11. Khalsa Human Rights

12. National Sikh Committee Italy

13. Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar)

14. Shiromani Akali Dal International

15. Sikh Council of Belgium

16. Sikh Federation (UK)

17. Sikh Foundation Switzerland

18. Sikh Heritage Foundation

19. Sikh Secretariat

20. Sikh Youth of America

21. United Sikh Federation

22. United Sikhs

23. Voices For Freedom

24. World Sikh Organisation

25. Young Sikhs (UK)