Activists pledge to protect rights of all communities

Tribune News Service

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Amritsar, December 11

On Human Rights Day, which falls on December 10, civil liberty activists from Punjab, Kashmir, Nagaland, Tamil Nadu and Tripura assembled in Amritsar and kicked off their campaign to fight for the protection of their religious, civil, economic and political rights.

They paid obeisance at the Golden Temple and were honoured by SGPC’s former secretary Bhagwant Singh Sialka at a programme held at the entrance plaza of the shrine convened by Dal Khalsa.

A charter of Human Rights Declaration was also released. They vowed to work unitedly for the rights of all communities, ethnicities, regions, nationalities and marginalised social groups. They resolved to be committed to engaging, debating and evolving solutions on principles enshrined in the UN Human Rights Charter and practices that respect humans and their choices.

Neingulo Krone, general secretary of Naga People’s Movement for Human Rights, spoke about the Naga quest for dignified peace by implementing the Indo-Naga Framework Agreement signed in 2015 that speaks about a separate identity and sovereignty for Nagaland residents.

Advocate Atif Geelani from Kashmir raised the issue of fake encounters, torture, illegal arrests in Kashmir and repeal of Article 370 and 35A.

The activists demanded the Centre to scrap all legal and administrative impunity to police, para-military and armed forces. They demanded release of political prisoners.

They sought respect for all nationalistic, cultural, religious and linguistic distinctiveness and demanded anti-CAA movement, demolishing the pseudo-culture of majoritarianism and suppression of the right to expression, dissent and privacy.

They also chided the Government of India for its failure to recognise the deaths of 700 farmers and Lakhimpur Kheri incident, in which three farmers and a journalist were crushed to death. They demanded adequate compensation to kin of victims during the course of the farm agitation.

Others present on the occasion included Harpal Singh Cheema, HS Dhami, Kanwarpal Singh, Emaan Singh Maan and Prof Jamohan Singh, all representing Punjab; Dr Neivesto Venuh and Neingulo Krome representing Nagaland; Seeban Ashai and Advocate Atif Geelani from Kashmir and Vasantha, Srijan Chawla from New Delhi.