Issue of racist attack on North East Indian people raised at UN :: Full Statement
43rd Meeting 25th Regular Session of Human Rights Council
21 March 2014
Babloo Loitongbam *
Babloo Loitongbam speaking at the 43rd Meeting 25th Regular Session of Human Rights Council at Geneva on March 21 2014
25th session of the UN Human Rights Council. Human Rights Council the highest body of the UN dealing with human rights consisting of 43 member States including India.
The statement was made during the General Debate under Agenda Item no. 5 dealing with the report of the Forum on Minority Issues.
Link (webtv.un.org) here
Full Statement
Liberation
General Debate
Item – 5
By: Babloo Loitongbam
Thank you Mr. President!
Liberation would like to draw your kind attention to the increasing racist attacks on persons hailing from the North Eastern States of India in Delhi and other metropolitan cities of India.
On 29 January 2014, Mr. Nido Tania, a young student from Arunachal Pradesh studying in Delhi, was beaten up by some shopkeepers when he angrily responded to their mocking of his peculiar hair style. Delhi police picked him up, forced him to pay rupees ten thousand for the damages caused during the scuffle and then dropped him back from the police station to the same area. The beatings resumed and Nido Tania succumbed to his injuries the next day.
Nido Tania’s story is not an isolated incident but a manifestation of a deep-rooted racial prejudice toward the racially and culturally distinct peoples of the North East. In the summer of 2012, racist threats resulted in the exodus of thousands of North Eastern peoples from the Indian cities like Bangaluru, Pune, Hyderabad, etc.
Libration is appalled by the total absence of any protection mechanism for the “national or ethnic minority” within the legislative and constitutional framework of the country, in contrast to those enjoyed by their brethren belonging to the “religious and linguistic minorities”. And yet, it is the territories inhabited by these national or ethnic minorities that are chronically militarized under discriminatory laws like the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, 1958 granting impunity to the armed forces to perpetuate extra-judicial killings and rapes!
Liberation is happy to note that the Government of India has recently (Ministry of Home Affairs, vide no. 11012/110/2012-NE-IV dated 5 February 2014) constituted a committee to look into various kinds of concerns of the persons hailing from the North Eastern States who are living in different parts of the country and to suggest suitable remedial measures which could be taken up by the Government.
Even as this positive move gathers momentum, Liberation would like to urge this Council
o to remind the Government of India of its obligations under the International Convention on Elimination of Racial Discrimination,
o to give full effect to the Rabat Plan of Action on the prohibition of advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence for all its citizens, and
o to promptly repeal racist laws such as the Armed Forces Special Powers Act.
Thank you Mr. President.
* Babloo Loitongbam sent this info to e-pao.net
This article was posted on March 22, 2014.
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