Thousands Submit Sikh Genocide Petition to the United Nations in Geneva
By: Sikh24 Editors
GENEVA, Switzerland (November 2, 2013)—Thousands of Sikhs from around the world assembled at the UN offices in Geneva, Switzerland, yesterday, demanding the launch of an international investigation into the 1984 genocidal acts against Sikhs in India, which India concludes to be as a result of bare communal rioting.
Organisers from the New York based human rights advocacy group, Sikhs For Justice, had earlier held talks with UN officials and submitted a million-signature petition to the UN Human Rights office.
Sikhs For Justice policy director, Canadian-born Jatinder Singh Grewal said, “The reason
we are petitioning the UN to investigate the killing of Sikhs in November 1984 is that we believe the truth has not been told to the world.”
“What happened in November 1984 was a systematic and deliberate attempt to kill a religious minority. It happened with the complicity of the government and, in many documented cases, with the participation of the government,” he added.
Indian diplomats in Geneva said that the events had been dealt with by India’s judicial system but were unwilling to comment on the submitted petition.
Continuously rising tensions in India erupted in October 1984 after Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated. She had ordered a full-scale military attack on the Golden Temple in Amritsar, Punjab, June of that year. While India only acknowledges the murders of 3000 Sikhs due to mere “riots,” activists say there is evidence supporting a death toll of over 30,000.
“If India has nothing in their closet, they should open the doors. But they have skeletons. The skeletons of Sikhs…” said Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, a legal advisor of the Sikhs For Justice organisation.
Indira Prahst, a Canadian sociologist was adamant that the failure to address the atrocities of 1984 encouraged further violence sprees against other minority communities of India, including Muslims in 1992 and 2002, and Christians in 2008.
“We remember atrocities so that we do not repeat the past. And the past continues to be repeated in India through violence with impunity,” said Prahst.
Media reports say a decision whether to open Human Rights Council probe is unlikely to come before next year from UN officials, and that only the International Criminal Court can apply the label of genocide to the atrocities of 1984.