LONDON: Amnesty International, the human rights group which has for years flaunted its nonpolitical credentials, is sharing the platform with ‘Khalistani and Kashmiri separatist groups and reportedly talking about “self-determination” in Punjab. The London based rights group took ‘an active part in a recent meeting at the Launch of a “Khalistan Society” all the London School of Economics, where it ‘was represented by senior Amnesty of facial Assad Rehman. A statement issued by the society suggested that Rehmun went beyond questions of human rights at the meeting; it said that Rehman “stressed the importance of peaceful self-determination in Punjab.”
Rehman has continued to represent Amnesty at primarily political meetings in the face of strong objections by the Indian government that Amnesty has been stepping outside its own stated policy of shunning political issues. Rehman said that he had a right 10 attend the Khalistan meeting as a representative of Amnesty International to discuss the human rights issue. He said Amnesty sends representatives tomeet18s “both religious and secular” to raise human rights issues all over the Indian subcontinent. Critics said Amnesty has made no such effort to seek out occasions to talk of the victims of militants Violence in India.
Rehman had also attended a meeting at a gurdwara in Slough near London a year ago to celebrate “Khalistan Day” “organized by group of Khalistani ’sled by Jagjit Singh Chohan. Several Pakistanis were among the speakers at that meeting.
Dwindling support for any notions of “Khalistan” was evident al that earlier meeting. As the meeting progressed, fewer listeners than speakers remained. But the small number of Khalistanis continues to get a boost from the presence of the Amnesty representative at their meetings. According to the statement that carried the details of the last of these meetings held at the London School of Economics Rehman “detailed the violent and antidemocratic tactics used by India to crush political dissent and drew comparisons between such tactics used in occupied Punjab and other parts of India.”
While admitting that “Amnesty has a clear mandate not to take a stand on territorial questions,” Rahman claimed that he had attended the Khalistan meetings only (o talk about the human rights situation “in terms of the violation by the security forces and the so called separatist organizations as well.”
He was present at the Khalistan meetings only as an “outside speaker,” he said. “We were only sharing a platform to talk about Amnesty International work.”
That platform was used not just 10 abuse India but to raise a call to “mobilize resources to protect the rights of those fighting for freedom in Indian occupied Punjab.” Others who addressed the meeting were Gurmit Singh Aulakh, a U.S. based Khalistan supporter, and Max Madden, Labor Member of Parliament. Madden regularly attends anti India meetings called by both Khalistanis and by Kashmiri artists.
Amnesty International has also been sending its representatives to meetings called by a group named the Khalsa Human Rights, based in Holy Bones in Leicester, about 100 miles north of London. “Mr, Rehman addressed a meeting. We called in February this year,” Janine Landon from Khalsa Human Rights said “We often do meetings together with Amnesty International.”
“We are not a political organization and we have no stance on Khalistan,” she said, but the activists who support the group are largely Khalistan supporters.
‘The group has been pressing Amnesty International to adopt Raghbir Singh of the Punjabi newspaper Awaje Qaum ‘as a prisoner of conscience. Singh is ‘under detention pending deportation. The deportation order against him was secured following the murder of the editor of another Punjabi newspaper, Tarsem Singh Purewal. Raghbir Singh has not, however, been charged in that case. A publication of the group Khalsa Human Rights says that “if adopted, Raghbir Singh will be the first prisoner of conscience ever adopted by Amnesty International from the United Kingdom since Amnesty was founded in 1961.”
Article extracted from this publication >> June 5, 1996
