WSP calls for UN intervention to resolve Indo-Sikh conflict

GENEVA: The World Sikh Parliament (WSP) has urged the United Nations to take action to deal with key human rights concerns that define the decades-old conflict between the Sikh nation and the Indian state.

The appeal was made by a delegation of the recently formed WSP which met with a senior UN human rights official in Geneva on the 34th anniversary of the genocide of the Sikhs in India during the first week of November 1984. The WSP was formed pursuant to a resolution of the Sarbat Khalsa (national gathering) in November 2015. It has resolved to pursue the cause of Sikh human rights, both collective and individual, and to internationalise the campaign. The engagement with the UN in Geneva marks the first step in that process, said a press release issued here.

The WSP has called for the UN to take a lead in establishing an international criminal tribunal to deliver justice. The delegates from the UK, Switzerland and France also delivered a detailed memorandum which focused on the core issue underlying the conflict in Indian Punjab.

The WSP urged the UN to robustly challenge the official Indian ‘reservation’ against Article 1 of the 1966 International Covenants on Human Rights which set out the right to self-determination. The WSP delegation articulated the need for global pressure on India to release Sikh political prisoners, many of whom remain incarcerated despite completing their sentences.

They advised the UN to dismiss out of hand Indian ambitions for a permanent seat on the UN’s Security Council.