No "business as usual" with
the butcher of Gujarat
18 September 08
Narendra Modi
to address Toronto gala
Harper government ends Liberal blacklist – opens trade office in Gujarat
Gala event in Toronto
We are deeply troubled that the Canadian Friends of Gujarat supported by the
Canada India Foundation have organized a gala event with their guest speaker,
Mr. Narendra Modi, the Chief Minister of the state of Gujarat , India , at the Pearson Convention
Centre, Brampton , Ontario on 19th September at
7pm.
Gujarat Genocide 2002
Mr.Modi and his minister and government have been indicted by reputable Indian
and international human rights organizations
including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, National Human Rights
Commission [of India] all extensively documented and easy to access—e.g. Human Rights Watch, We Have No Orders to Save
You-- for their sponsorship of and complicity in the "ethnic
cleansing" and "massacres" of Muslims in Gujarat during February
- March 2002. Thousands of people were killed and made refugees, hundreds
of women and young girls were brutally raped and tortured before being killed,
and religious places of worship were defiled and destroyed. In addition,
Mr.Modi's government targeted Muslims, Christians and secular Hindus before
and after the 2002 Gujarat genocide.
By honoring Mr. Modi at their Brampton event on
19th September 2008, the Canadian Friends of Gujarat and the Canada India
Foundation dishonor the victims of the Gujarat
genocide, and insult the moral dignity of all. Furthermore, honouring him
raises questions about their commitment to secularism and pluralism.
Aftermath of Genocide
Mr. Modi's government has systematically prevented victims and survivors of the
genocide from attaining redress from the state judiciary. Mr. Modi's
tenure has had a chilling effect on the Christian and Muslim communities of Gujarat . Under his leadership, more than 2,000 of 4,000
cases filed by the victims of the violence were never investigated or
dismissed, leading the Supreme Court of India to
rebuke both the Gujarat judiciary and the Government of Gujarat for its handling of the cases,
and transferring several cases out of the state for trial.
Links to Hindu fascism & fundamentalism
Mr. Modi is a long-standing member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), an
organization modelled after and inspired by European fascist
organizations. He is in close alliance with and promotes the extreme
right-wing Hindutva movement that is supremacist and anti-minority and whose
members were responsible for the assassination of Mahatma
Gandhi. This movement was modelled of Mussolini's Fascist Party in the
1920s and has been glorifying Hitler since the 1930s. It is an
ultra-nationalist Hindu fundamentalist organization.
International conventions flouted
Mr. Modi is in violation of the International Religious
Freedom Act of 1998, and other international laws,
and there are currently two civil suits filed against him for crimes against humanity and genocide. Mr. Modi's
involvement in these massacres and activities violates Canada 's
stated position on "Crimes Against Humanity"..
US State Department Revoked Visa for Modi
In 2005 the United States Department of State
revoked Mr. Modi's tourist visa under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), which prohibits
foreign government officials who are "responsible for or [have] directly
carried out, at any time, particularly severe violations of religious
freedom" from obtaining U.S. visas. When Mr. Modi was invited to attend a
cultural event organized by the Gujarat community in New Jersey in
August this year, the same conditions applied.
For this reason Mr. Modi will be addressing the gala event via video
conferencing. The centre stage position he will occupy is deeply troubling and
we believe that it is an attempt to whitewash his role in the Gujarat
genocide.
Canada Trades with
Gujarat – Harper about face
In addition for us as Canadians as we are about to elect a new government it is
most distressing that the government of Stephen Harper
recently (August '08) opened a trade office in Gujarat
. The former liberal government had put Gujarat
state on an implicit blacklist because of the genocide of 2002. Canada has
recognized that human rights and trade and commercial activities cannot be seen
in isolation. We need to remember that while millions were be killed by
the Nazis, IBM was providing the punchcards and data entry machines to
streamline the process. We should not let "business as usual" trump
human rights.
Info: Dolores Chew, South Asian Women's Community Centre ("Justice for the
Victims of the Gujarat Genocide
Campaign") 514-485-9192 (home); 514-931-8792 x 381 (work) dolchew@hotmail.com
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