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Multilateral Foreign Policy > Published by Laura Wood, November 24th 2009 at 3:57 pm

Amnesty urges Obama: Get tough on Indian human rights

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Barack-Obama-Manmohan-SinghIndian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is today meeting President Obama in the first official state visit since his re-election. Ahead of that meeting, Amnesty International issued an open letter to Mr Obama, urging him to press Prime Minister Singh on human rights abuses in India.

In a press release issued last night Amnesty said:

“As the world’s largest democracy, human rights must be fundamental, and accountability for past abuses should be treated not as a luxury but as a necessity.”

On Monday Larry Cox, Executive Director of Amnesty International, sent an open letter to President Obama in which he claimed that:

“Serious and disturbing human rights abuses are ongoing, including rape, extrajudicial executions, deaths in police and military custody, torture, cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment, arbitrary arrests, and dowry deaths.”

The human rights organisation cited the 2002 Gujarat killings of more than 2,000 Muslims, and the mass killing of Sikhs in 1984, for which they claimed that the members of the governing Congress party and others involved had not been brought to justice. They also called for Obama to bring attention to abuses of the lowest caste of Indian society, the “Dalits” or “untouchables”.

Amnesty have urged President Obama to push Prime Minister Singh for better human rights protections for civilians in the ongoing military action against the Maoists-Naxalites, and for better accountability for armed forces personnel responsible for human rights violations in Kashmir.

  • http://twitter.com/gsdog7/status/6011473713 gsdog7

    RT @leftfootfwd: #Amnesty urges Obama to get tough on human rights abuses in India http://bit.ly/4MDVYR

  • A M

    This is the sort of thing that will enrage the Indian Government. We should not ignore human rights abuses, or sweep them under the carpet because there is an economic interest in not offending the worlds emerging superpowers. That said, every country has human rights problems of one scale top another, and a country as vast as India with the problems it has is always going to have issues such as these. a better way for them to be addressed is to say wherether there is any help that can be offered to India on how to combat it, like police training. This is much better than trying to humiliate the country internationally (which is exactly how it will be percieved).

    As for the Caste issue, it is a sensitive one in the country, and should not be handled with clumsy language or gestures. the best way of changing the system is to increase economic equality and prosperity and “share the wealth”- something Americans seem to recoil at the thought of themselves.

    Also, I wonder if Dr. Singh will bring up waterboarding, Guantanamo, etc by way of a riposte.

  • http://www.defence.pk/forums/kashmir-war/68075-45-kashmiri-civilians-murdered-indian-security-forces-since-june-19.html#post1045600 45 Kashmiri civilians murdered by Indian security forces since June ! – Page 19

    [...] 45 Kashmiri civilians murdered by Indian security forces since June ! Amnesty urges Obama: Get tough on Indian human rights | Left Foot Forward Its good that the Indian goverment is being brutal…as it will show the world that something [...]