When someone mentions India, what comes to mind? Perhaps you think of the Taj Mahal or the Himalaya's. Well, what about the people? the government? human right's?
Did you know that India is one of the most evil, corrupt, intolerant, prejudiced, immoral and vile human rights abusers in the world?
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 10 December 1948, was the result of the experience of the Second World War. With the end of that war, and the creation of the United Nations, the international community vowed never again to allow atrocities like those of that conflict to happen again. World leaders decided to complement the UN Charter with a road map to guarantee the rights of every individual everywhere.
In 1948, India also signed The Universal Declaration of Human Rights however has continued to abuse the human rights of Sikhs and others.
The government of India has consistently opposed the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. It abstained in the vote adopting of the statute in 1998, saying it objected to the broad definition adopted of crimes against humanity; why? does India have unfinished business in conducting crimes against humanity?
At India's core, is a fear of the word 'GENOCIDE'. Why?
Because India signed the 'Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide' (Adopted by Resolution 260 (III) A of the United Nations General Assembly on 9 December 1948) on 29th Nov 1949.
India formally ratified (gave formal consent to (a treaty, contract, or agreement), making it officially valid) the convention on 27th Aug 1959.
Indira Gandhi's father, Jawaharlal Nehru was the Prime Minister of India during this time. So, it is ironic that the Gandhi family agreed to 'prevent and punish the crime of genocide' and then led the political party that committed Genocide and subsequently prevented punishment of those involved.
As a signatory, India is accountable to the International Community and must answer for its breach of responsibilities.
After the Jewish holocaust of World War 2, Germany was in denial for many years. India is still in denial of its evil.
It is the duty of all Sikhs to ensure injustices do not continue. If India thinks it can avoid its obligations, what will it do next?
The following link contains a comprehensive library on Sikh genocide and associated articles, books and reports.
(2010) This 20-page report is an analysis of the amendments to the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), enacted after the November 26, 2008 attacks on Mumbai that killed 166 people and injured over 300. Comparing them to previous legislation, the report finds that the new amendments contain provisions that are also likely to result in abuse of terrorism suspects and the infringement of basic due process rights.
(2008) This report documents human rights abuses against civilians, particularly indigenous tribal communities, caught in a deadly tug-of-war between government security forces and the vigilante Salwa Judum and Naxalites.
(2008) This photo brochure documents human rights abuses against civilians, particularly indigenous tribal communities, caught in a deadly tug-of-war between government security forces and the vigilante Salwa Judum and Naxalites.
(2012) The 60-page report documents human rights abuses against activists in India's Orissa, Jharkhand, and Chhattisgarh states. Human Rights Watch found that grassroots activists who deliver development assistance and publicize abuses in Maoist conflict areas are at particular risk of being targeted by government security forces and Maoist insurgents, known as Naxalites. Maoists frequently accuse activists of being informers and warn them against implementing government programs. The police demand that they serve as informers, and those that refuse risk being accused of being Maoist supporters and subject to arbitrary arrest and torture. The authorities use sedition laws to curtail free speech and also concoct criminal cases to lock up critics of the government.
(2003) The Indian government is failing to protect the rights of hundreds of thousands of children who toil as virtual slaves in the country's silk industry, Human Rights Watch said in this new report. The 85-page report, "Small Change: Bonded Child Labor in India's Silk Industry," calls on the Indian government to implement its national laws to free and rehabilitate these "bonded children." Bound to their employers in exchange for a loan to their families, they are unable to leave while in debt and earn so little they may never be free. A majority of them are Dalits, so-called untouchables at the bottom of India's caste system.
(2013) This 82-page report examines how current government responses are falling short, both in protecting children from sexual abuse and treating victims. Many children are effectively mistreated a second time by traumatic medical examinations and by police and other authorities who do not want to hear or believe their accounts. Government efforts to tackle the problem, including new legislation to protect children from sexual abuse, will also fail unless protection mechanisms are properly implemented and the justice system reformed to ensure that abuse is reported and fully prosecuted, Human Rights Watch said.
(2009) This page report documents a range of human rights violations committed by police, including arbitrary arrest and detention, torture and extrajudicial killings. The report is based on interviews with more than 80 police officers of varying ranks, 60 victims of police abuses, and numerous discussions with experts and civil society activists. It documents the failings of state police forces that operate outside the law, lack sufficient ethical and professional standards, are overstretched and outmatched by criminal elements, and unable to cope with increasing demands and public expectations. Field research was conducted in 19 police stations in Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh, and the capital, Delhi.
(2009) This photo brochure report documents a range of human rights violations committed by police, including arbitrary arrest and detention, torture and extrajudicial killings. The report is based on interviews with more than 80 police officers of varying ranks, 60 victims of police abuses, and numerous discussions with experts and civil society activists. It documents the failings of state police forces that operate outside the law, lack sufficient ethical and professional standards, are overstretched and outmatched by criminal elements, and unable to cope with increasing demands and public expectations. Field research was conducted in 19 police stations in Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh, and the capital, Delhi.
(2001) Caste-based discrimination blights the lives of hundreds of millions of people around the world, and the World Conference Against Racism should have the issue squarely on its agenda, Human Rights Watch urges in a new report. The 60-page report focuses on the Dalits or so-called untouchables of South Asia - including Nepal, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan - as well the Buraku people of Japan, the Osu of Nigeria, and certain groups in Senegal and Mauritania who also suffer from caste-based discrimination. The prominence of caste among South Asian diaspora communities is also revealed. The report, which is being released at the nongovernmental forum before the racism conference taking place in Durban from August 28-August 31, clearly shows that caste discrimination is a significant bar to basic human rights worldwide.
(2014) This 96-page report documents the coercive nature of manual scavenging. Across India, castes that work as "manual scavengers" collect human excrement on a daily basis, and carry it away in cane baskets for disposal. Women from this caste usually clean dry toilets in homes, while men do the more physically demanding cleaning of sewers and septic tanks. The report describes the barriers people face in leaving manual scavenging, including threats of violence and eviction from local residents but also threats, harassment, and unlawful withholding of wages by local officials.
(2004) This chronology reveals that communal riots are not caused spontaneously and also that they are rarely caused by religious animosity. They arise due to conflicting political interests, which are often linked to economic interests.
(1996) Three years after the deaths of more than 1,000 people in Bombay's worst incident of communal violence since independence, the government of the Indian state of Maharashtra unexpectedly terminated the commission of inquiry that had been set up to investigate the riots. The focus of the Srikrishna Commission's investigation was the violence that broke out in January 1993 and that was directed primarily against Bombay's Muslims. The riots followed weeks of attacks on Muslims in north India in the aftermath of the destruction of a 16th-century mosque in Ayodhya. Labeled as "communal" because the violence involved communities identified by religious differences, the riots were in fact orchestrated events which depended on the connivance or outright participation of police and other officials and political leaders.
(2003) The 70-page report examines the record of state authorities in holding perpetrators accountable and providing humanitarian relief to victims of state-supported massacres of Muslims in February and March 2002. More than one hundred Muslims have been charged under India's much-criticized Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA). No Hindus have been charged under POTA in connection with the violence against Muslims. Although the Indian government initially boasted of thousands of arrests following the attacks, most of those arrested have since been acquitted, released on bail with no further action taken, or simply let go. Police regularly downgrade serious charges to lesser crimes and alter victims' statements to delete the names of the accused. Even when cases reach trial, Muslim victims face biased prosecutors and judges. Hindu and Muslim lawyers representing Muslim victims, and doctors providing medical relief to them, have also faced harassment and threats.
(1994) As the conflict in Kashmir continues into its fifth year, the government of India appears to have stepped up its catch-and-kill campaign against Muslim insurgents, resulting in an escalation of human rights abuses since early 1994. Civilians continue to bear the brunt of the casualties, falling victim both to government forces and to the various factions, collectively known as "militants."
(1993) The vicious conflict in Kashmir, now in its fourth year, is characterized by the Indian army's and other security forces blatant disregard for international norms of medical neutrality. Security forces frequently detain and assault health professionals; beat and shoot ambulance drivers, preventing them from transporting injured people; and raid hospitals, forcing doctors at gunpoint to identify injured patients who are then arrested, in some cases after being disconnected from life-sustaining equipment. The security forces have also opened fire on hospital grounds, entered operating theaters and destroyed medical supplies. Virtually everyone taken into custody by the security forces in Kashmir is tortured by electric shock and severe beatings. Despite the fact that many health services have been curtailed, and hospitals are short-staffed and overcrowded, India refuses to permit international humanitarian organizations to assist with medical relief in Kashmir.
(2008) This 58-page Human Rights Watch report updates information on the use of children by all parties to the conflict, the harm they have suffered, and the adverse impact of the conflict on children's education. The report is based on information gathered from more than 160 interviews with villagers, Salwa Judum camp residents, police, SPOs, and former child Naxalites in Chhattisgarh state.
(1992) Abuses of human rights often exist in tandem with environmental degradation. Suppression of dissent -- often violent -- is frequently employed by governments to silence opposition to harmful political and social policies and development schemes that could not withstand public scrutiny, and to forestall public concern about environmental decay. The case studies in this report demonstrate a linkage between human rights and environmental abuses that is global in scope, occurring in both industrialized and developing countries. Issuing this joint report at the time of the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro will focus attention on the relationship, often causal, between human rights and environmental abuses. We also hope that it marks the start of future exchanges between the two groups of advocates, so that both causes will benefit from an expanded constituency for their concerns.
(2006) This 156-page report documents recent abuses by the Indian army and paramilitaries, as well as by militants, many of whom are backed by Pakistan. Indian security forces have committed torture, "disappearances" and arbitrary detentions, and they continue to execute Kashmiris in faked "encounter killings," claiming that these killings take place during armed clashes with militants. Militants have carried out bombings and grenade attacks against civilians, targeted killings, torture and attacks upon religious and ethnic minorities.
(2007) This 113-page report was produced as a "shadow report" in response to India's submission to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), which monitors implementation of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD).
(1992) In Andhra Pradesh, one of India's poorest and least developed states, conflict between government forces and an armed insurgent group known as the Peoples War Group, has resulted in massive human rights violations. In its campaign to crush the insurgency, the state government has condoned the torture and murder of suspected militants and ordinary civilians in staged "encounters" with the police. Journalists or human rights activists who have investigated these killings and other abuses have also been murdered by the police, and militants in the state have attacked and killed civilians.
(2003) The paper then details human rights violations connected to anti-terrorism efforts in China, Egypt, Georgia, India, Indonesia, Russia, Spain, United Kingdom, United States, and Uzbekistan. It highlights the degree to which the United States and other governments have become muted in their criticism of and have even extended new security assistance and support to some of the most abusive governments worldwide that have become newfound allies in the fight against terrorism.
(unknown) Why hasn't India signed up to the International Criminal Court? Is it because of human rights abuses and Sikh genocide?
(1996) In 1996, the conflict in Kashmir entered it seventh year, with little indication that parliamentary elections in May would either lead to peace or end the widespread human rights abuses that characterized the war. In the months preceding the elections, Indian security forces intensified their efforts against militant groups, stepping up cordon-and-search operations and summarily executing captured militant leaders. Alongside them, operating as a secret, illegal army, were state-sponsored paramilitary groups, composed of captured or surrendered former militants described as "renegades" by the Indian government. Many of these groups were responsible for grave human rights abuses, including summary executions, torture, and illegal detention as well as election-related intimidation of voters.
(1993) The Indian state of Assam, located south of Bhutan and east of Bangladesh, is geographically almost cut off from the rest of India, with its only physical link a narrow land corridor to West Bengal. Home to a number of tribes and ethnic groups, Assam has been the site of separatist movements and violent insurgencies since India's independence in 1947. The most serious has been the campaign waged by the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) since 1979. In attempting to crush the ULFA organization and several other groups, the Indian government has launched counterinsurgency campaigns that have been fraught with widespread human rights violations.
(1996) At least eighteen million children live or work on the streets of India, laboring as porters in railway stations or bus terminals, as rag pickers, and as vendors of food, tea, or handmade articles. These street children are routinely subjected to arbitrary and illegal detention, torture, and extortion, and on occasion, murder at the hands of police who engage in these violations of international and Indian law with impunity. Based on interviews with more than one hundred children during a one-month investigation in India, this report details police abuse and killings of street children in Bangalore, Bombay, Madras, New Delhi, and the state of Andhra Pradesh.
(1991) Despite the checks and balances inherent in India's democratic structure designed to curb government lawlessness, the institutional basis for the prison system has become grossly unfair. In some major cities anyone unlucky enough to be arrested faces a far greater likelihood of torture or worse at the hands of the police than in many countries entirely lacking in the protections for civil liberties available in India. In Indian prisons there exists a rigid class system that is explicitly mandated by law, where special privileges are accorded to the minority of prisoners who come from the upper or middle classes, irrespective of the crimes they may have committed or the way that they comport themselves in prison. As this report shows, it is a system filled with contradictions not unlike those permeating Indian society as a whole.
(1993) Since January 1990, the north Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir has been the site of a brutal conflict between Indian security forces and armed Muslim insurgents demanding independence or accession to Pakistan. This report documents the use of rape as a means of targeting women whom the security forces accuse of being militant sympathizers, and in raping them, how the forces attempt to punish and humiliate an entire community.
(2005) This 91-page report documents the growing practice among Western governments—including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands—of seeking assurances of humane treatment in order to transfer terrorism suspects to states with well-established records of torture. The report details a dozen cases involving actual or attempted transfers to countries where torture is commonplace.
(2011) This 106-page report documents consistent abuse by Indian security forces in their response to the scourge of terrorism attacks. State police, jail officials, and other authorities have committed a range of human rights violations, including arbitrary arrest and detention, torture, and religious discrimination. The report details the mistreatment of alleged members of the Indian Mujahideen, a militant Islamist group that since 2008 has claimed responsibility for six bombings and other deadly attacks, as well as that of Hindu nationalist suspects charged in a separate bombing in 2008.
(2007) The Constitution Of India as at 2007.
(1993) Indian troops have embarked on a "catch and kill" campaign against Muslim militants, resulting in a sharp escalation of human rights abuses, including summary executions of hundreds of detainees in the custody of security forces. Troops have also engaged in reprisal attacks against civilians, assaults on medical workers, rape, torture and arson. Masroof Sultan (pictured on the cover), was detained by security forces in April 1993, beaten, tortured with electric shock, then shot and left for dead. The Human Rights Crisis in Kashmir provides comprehensive documentation of the consequences of India's abusive policy in Kashmir. It also documents violations by armed militants, including killings, rape and indiscriminate attacks in populated areas, and concludes that these abuses and India's policy of impunity toward its own security forces has helped fuel the conflict and create a human rights disaster in Kashmir.
(1996) With credible estimates ranging from 60 to 115 million, India has the largest number of working children in the world. Whether they are sweating in the heat of stone quarries, working in the fields sixteen hours a day, picking rags in city streets, or hidden away as domestic servants, these children endure miserable and difficult lives. They earn little and are abused much. They struggle to make enough to eat and perhaps to help feed their families as well. They do not go to school; more than half of them will never learn the barest skills of literacy. Many of them have been working since the age of four or five, and by the time they reach adulthood they may be irrevocably sick or deformed they will certainly be exhausted. At least fifteen million of them are working as virtual slaves. These are the bonded child laborers of India.
(2008) This 79-page report documents the failure of justice in the state, where for 50 years the army, empowered and protected by the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA), has committed numerous serious human rights violations. The report details the failure of justice in the killing and possible rape of alleged militant Thangjam Manorama Devi by the paramilitary Assam Rifles in 2004. Repeated attempts to identify and punish those responsible for her death have been stalled by the army, which has received protection under the immunity provisions of the AFSPA.
(2014) The 77-page report documents discrimination by school authorities in four Indian states against Dalit, tribal, and Muslim children. The discrimination creates an unwelcome atmosphere that can lead to truancy and eventually may lead the child to stop going to school. Weak monitoring mechanisms fail to identify and track children who attend school irregularly, are at risk of dropping out, or have dropped out.
(2002) State Participation and Complicity in Communal Violence in Gujarat. In some cases they were merely passive observers. But in many instances, police officials led the charge of murderous mobs, aiming and firing at Muslims who got in the way. Under the guise of offering assistance, some police officers led the victims directly into the hands of their killers. Panicked phone calls made to the police, fire brigades, and even ambulance services generally proved futile. Several witnesses reported being told by police: "We have no orders to save you."
"Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,
Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,
Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law,
Whereas it is essential to promote the development of friendly relations between nations,
Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,
Whereas Member States have pledged themselves to achieve, in co-operation with the United Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms,
Whereas a common understanding of these rights and freedoms is of the greatest importance for the full realization of this pledge,
Now, Therefore THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY proclaims THIS UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction."
Crimes Against Humanity - Where are our Sikh sons and daughters, brothers and sisters?
Human rights are moral principles that describe certain standards of human behaviour, and are regularly protected as legal rights in national and international law. They are commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights "to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being," and which are "inherent in all human beings" regardless of their nation, location, language, religion, ethnic origin or any other status. They are applicable everywhere and at every time in the sense of being universal, and they are egalitarian in the sense of being the same for everyone. They require empathy and the rule of law and impose an obligation on persons to respect the human rights of others. They should not be taken away except as a result of due process based on specific circumstances, and require freedom from unlawful imprisonment, torture, and execution.
Ancient peoples did not have the same modern-day conception of universal human rights. Indians often describe themselves as an ancient people.
Does being an 'ancient people' explain why India is a racist, caste based discriminating society that lacks human compassion? Sikhism arose to challenge tyrants and promote equality for all humans, perhaps that is why India seeks its destruction.
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