BY KANWAL JIT SINGH GILL of Surrey
OVER the years we have always felt that Canada is a great champion against human rights violations and innocent killings around the world. But lately we have seen that always isn’t the case. It mostly depends upon the business and political relations with certain countries. In some cases the Canadian government is quick to raise its voice against a few innocent killings and human rights violations in certain countries. But the same Canadian government has ignored and failed to raise its voice against human rights violations and thousands of innocent killings in certain countries. It is a very sad reality that business and political affairs guide the government on such important issues.
Over the years, the Sikh community in Canada has been approaching the Canadian government and Prime Minister Stephen Harper about thousands of innocent Sikhs that were killed in India in the Blue Star Operation army attack on the Golden Temple in Amritsar. And then in 1984, a Sikh Genocide was organized, led and executed by the ruling Congress government at the time, killing thousands of innocent Sikhs, raping hundreds of women and burning their houses and businesses in many cities, especially in the capital Delhi. And later on the Indian government continued its agenda and killed thousands of innocent Sikhs in fake encounters and police atrocities in Punjab. Even Jaswant Singh Khalra, human rights activist, who was raising his voice against innocent killings and coming up with names and numbers of innocent people that were being killed, was himself killed by the government. So far, in 30 years, the Government of India has failed to provide justice to the victims’ families and to punish the guilty persons involved in innocent killings.
Now once again we are requesting the Canadian government to ask the Indian government to stop human rights violations and innocent killings of minorities in India and provide justice to the victims’ families and punish the guilty persons. Now Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be visiting Canada in couple of weeks. That will be a very good opportunity for Harper to raise those issues with Modi. Thousands of Sikhs, Muslims and Christians have been killed in various parts of India and all the ruling governments have failed to provide justice.
We understand that business and political relations are very important to the Canadian government, but at the same time it is very important for the government to follow the UN Charter to raise its voice against human rights violations and innocent killings. So dear Mr. Harper, please make sure to raise these important issues with Mr. Modi and ask his governemnt to stop such minority innocent killings and to provide justice to the victims’ families and to punish the guilty persons.
(Views expressed here are solely those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of The VOICE.)