WSO ex­am­ines the Frame­work for Co­op­er­a­tion on Coun­ter­ing Ter­ror­ism and Vi­o­lent Ex­trem­ism be­tween Canada and In­dia on the hu­man rights front.  The WSO con­cern gives ex­pres­sion to Sikh fears and con­cerns. 

Without get­ting cowed down by the su­per­flu­ous and base­less al­le­ga­tions by the Chief Min­is­ter of Pun­jab Amarinder Singh and the ill-read and ov­er­en­thu­si­as­tic colum­nists of In­dia, the World Sikh Or­ga­ni­za­tion of Canada has put the whole is­sue of hu­man rights vi­o­la­tions in In­dia in the right per­spec­tive by rais­ing the red flag on the re­cent an­nounce­ment of the Frame­work for Co­op­er­a­tion on Coun­ter­ing Ter­ror­ism and Vi­o­lent Ex­trem­ism be­tween Canada and In­dia.  The WSO con­cern gives ex­pres­sion to Sikh fears and con­cerns.

Per­ti­nently, on the heels of the Justin Trudeau visit to Pun­jab, the WSO had cat­e­gor­i­cally re­jected all non­sen­si­cal claims of ris­ing Sikh rad­i­cal­ism in Canada. Ar­shy Mann cau­tions in his Opin­ion col­umn in CBC News says,“Trudeau should­n’t be tempted to cor­rect for his trip by in­ter­fer­ing in the ac­tiv­i­ties of peace­ful ac­tivists.” He added, “But the al­le­ga­tion that Canada is a refuge for Sikh ex­trem­ists is be­lied by the facts on the ground. Bab­bar Khalsa and the In­ter­na­tional Sikh Youth Fed­er­a­tion — the two pri­mary or­gans for vi­o­lent Sikh or­ga­niz­ing in the past — have been de­funct in Canada for decades. And the last ma­jor in­stance of Khal­is­tani vi­o­lence in Canada is the still-un­solved mur­der of jour­nal­ist Tara Singh Hayer, which took place 20 years ago.”

“Mem­bers of the Cana­dian Sikh com­mu­nity have con­tin­ued to al­lege in­ter­fer­ence of In­dian in­tel­li­gence agen­cies in com­mu­nity af­fairs, me­dia and events and have faced on­go­ing pres­sure and co­er­cion by In­dian of­fi­cials in Canada. Promi­nent mem­bers of the Cana­dian Sikh com­mu­nity, in­clud­ing me­dia per­son­al­i­ties and politi­cians have been de­nied visas to In­dia due to their ex­pres­sion of views ob­jec­tion­able to In­dia.”

There is no ba­sis or rea­son for this doc­u­ment but The Frame­work, an­nounced at the cul­mi­na­tion of the Justin Trudeau trip to In­dia, for­mal­izes “in­creased col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween the law en­force­ment and se­cu­rity agen­cies of both coun­tries” and will “de­velop ex­changes and fa­cil­i­tate ef­fec­tive co­op­er­a­tion in the fields of se­cu­rity, fi­nance, jus­tice, and law en­force­ment, in­clud­ing, where ap­pro­pri­ate, at the op­er­a­tional level.”

Tak­ing into ac­count In­di­a’s se­ri­ously flawed track record of In­dian se­cu­rity and in­tel­li­gence agen­cies be­ing reg­u­larly im­pli­cated in se­ri­ous vi­o­la­tion of hu­man rights, the apex body of the Sikhs in Canada -the World Sikh Or­ga­ni­za­tion has ex­pressed fears that “in­creased col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween Cana­dian and In­dian coun­ter­parts may jeop­ar­dise the lives of Cana­dian Sikhs or their fam­ily and friends in In­dia.”

As per the state­ment re­leased by the WSO, “Canada and In­dia had an in­tel­li­gence shar­ing arrange­ment be­fore, dur­ing the height of the in­sur­gency in Pun­jab in the 80s and 90s. That arrange­ment, how­ever, was stopped af­ter In­dian po­lice and para­mil­i­tary were found to be tar­get­ing the In­dian rel­a­tives of Cana­dian Sikhs whose names ap­peared in in­tel­li­gence re­ports shared by Canada. The tar­get­ing had re­sulted in the ab­duc­tion, tor­ture and, in some cases, even killing of those rel­a­tives by In­dian au­thor­i­ties.”

WSO has listed that both the Amnesty In­ter­na­tional 2017/​18 re­port and Hu­man Rights Watch 2018 re­port set out on­go­ing ex­cesses com­mit­ted by In­dian forces.

In Sep­tem­ber 2017, Canada’s Pub­lic Safety Min­is­ter Ralph Goodale re­leased the Min­is­te­r­ial Di­rec­tion to the Cana­dian Se­cu­rity In­tel­li­gence Ser­vice: Avoid­ing Com­plic­ity in Mis­treat­ment by For­eign En­ti­ties. The Di­rec­tion proibits:

a. the dis­clo­sure of in­for­ma­tion that would re­sult in a sub­stan­tial risk of mis­treat­ment of an in­di­vid­ual by a for­eign en­tity;
b. the mak­ing of re­quests for in­for­ma­tion that would re­sult in a sub­stan­tial risk of mis­treat­ment of an in­di­vid­ual by a for­eign en­tity; and
c. cer­tain uses of in­for­ma­tion that was likely ob­tained through the mis­treat­ment of an in­di­vid­ual by a for­eign en­tity.

It is un­clear how the Frame­work will be in com­pli­ance with this Min­is­te­r­ial Di­rec­tion.

WSO Pres­i­dent Mukhbir Singh said to­day, “Cana­dian Sikhs re­mem­ber that in­tel­li­gence shar­ing by Canada and In­dia in the 80s and 90s lead to the ab­duc­tion, tor­ture and even killing of Sikhs in Pun­jab.” Fur­ther­more, in Canada, mem­bers of the Sikh com­mu­nity have re­peat­edly ac­cused In­dian in­tel­li­gence agen­cies of on­go­ing in­ter­fer­ence in com­mu­nity af­fairs.

M. K. Dhar, a for­mer Joint Di­rec­tor and a 29-year vet­eran of the In­dian In­tel­li­gence Bu­reau, who was in Ot­tawa on a diplo­matic post­ing from 1983-87, con­firmed in his book “Open Se­crets” that his mis­sion was to pen­e­trate Gur­d­waras, Pun­jabi me­dia, cre­ate as­sets in the Sikh com­mu­nity and also to cul­ti­vate “a few friends amongst the Cana­dian Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment.”

Dhar wrote, “I do not in­tend to dis­close the de­tails of the in­tel­li­gence op­er­a­tions that were car­ried out be­tween Mani, Shashi and me in def­er­ence to the niceties of diplo­matic pro­to­col. But we did a lot and reached ap­pre­cia­ble pen­e­tra­tion in the key Sikh in­hab­ited cities in Canada.”

Mem­bers of the Cana­dian Sikh com­mu­nity have con­tin­ued to al­lege in­ter­fer­ence of In­dian in­tel­li­gence agen­cies in com­mu­nity af­fairs, me­dia and events and have faced on­go­ing pres­sure and co­er­cion by In­dian of­fi­cials in Canada. Promi­nent mem­bers of the Cana­dian Sikh com­mu­nity, in­clud­ing me­dia per­son­al­i­ties and politi­cians have been de­nied visas to In­dia due to their ex­pres­sion of views ob­jec­tion­able to In­dia.

“The Indo-Cana­dian Joint State­ment: Part­ner­ship for se­cu­rity and growth says, “The lead­ers -Justin Trudeau and Naren­dra Modi -also af­firmed the im­por­tance of pro­tect­ing and ad­vanc­ing hu­man rights at home and abroad.” Sikhs wish that this hap­pens sooner than later. ”

Most re­cently, or­ga­niz­ers of the 2017 Carabram Pun­jab pavil­ion in Bramp­ton re­ported last sum­mer, be­ing pres­sured by In­dian diplo­mats in Toronto to can­cel or merge their pavil­ion with the In­dia pavil­ion as a sep­a­rate Pun­jab pavil­ion was con­sid­ered an af­front to In­di­a’s unity and in­tegrity.

WSO Se­nior Vice Pres­i­dent Bhavjin­der Kaur said, “In­dian in­tel­li­gence bod­ies con­tinue to be ac­cused of in­ter­fer­ing in the af­fairs of Sikhs in Canada. While in­creased trade be­tween Canada and In­dia is ben­e­fi­cial to both coun­tries, it can­not be at the ex­pense of our hu­man rights prin­ci­ples or by com­pro­mis­ing the safety and se­cu­rity of in­di­vid­u­als, as may hap­pen with this Frame­work. With­out dra­matic im­prove­ments to their hu­man rights records, in­creased co­op­er­a­tion with In­dian se­cu­rity and in­tel­li­gence bod­ies is very prob­lem­atic.”

Gur­preet Singh writ­ing in Sabrang In­dia says, “The state­ment is not only silent on the growth of Hin­dutva ex­trem­ism, it squarely blames the Is­lamic and Sikh mil­i­tant groups for vi­o­lence and ter­ror. In other words the joint state­ment mim­ics the nar­ra­tive of the In­dian state on ter­ror­ism and there is hardly any ac­knowl­edge­ment of the threat Hin­dutva forces pose to peace and di­ver­sity.”

 If you like our sto­ries, do fol­low WSN on Face­book.

The Indo-Cana­dian Joint State­ment: Part­ner­ship for se­cu­rity and growth says, “The lead­ers -Justin Trudeau and Naren­dra Modi -also af­firmed the im­por­tance of pro­tect­ing and ad­vanc­ing hu­man rights at home and abroad.” Sikhs wish that this hap­pens sooner than later.