SASKATOON: For the second time, a small protest greeted India’s High Commissioner to Canada as he arrived for a speech to members of Saskatoon’s Indo-Canadian community last week.
Eight to 10 pickets, mainly from the local Muslim and Sikh com- munities, paced in front of the Ramada Renaissance hotel to protest human rights abuses in India. A similar protest took place be- fore High Commissioner Prem Budwhar’s April 9, address at the Delta Bessborough.
Protest organizer Balwinder Kaur said more people would have come out for the protest if not for fear of reprisals from the Indian government.
Many Canadians of Indian origin fear New Delhi may get back at protestors by denying them visas to visit relatives in India, or by harassing those relatives.
Canada should use its trading power to make India accountable for its human rights record,” said Kaur.
Muslims in India’s Kashmir state are “under attack” from India’s military, said Nayyar Javed, who was born and raised in Kashmir.
“I’ve seen women raped. I’ve seen men on whose bodies acid has been poured. I’ve met men whose wives have been raped in front of their eyes by soldiers,” said Javed.
Amnesty International, the Lon- don-based international human rights organization, has reported some 400 deaths in custody in India’s jails since 1985.
Budwhar described the views of the protesters and Amnesty as “one-sided.”
“They only focus on the so-called excesses committed by the military,” he said.
Article extracted from this publication >> April 15, 1994
