http://www.asianage.com/main.asp?layout=2&cat1=5&cat2=89&newsid=81497&RF=DefaultMain London launch of all-women analysis of Gujarat riots - By Our London Correspondent The Asian Age Monday, December 15, 2003. London, Dec. 14: After its launch in India on Human Rights Day, an all-womens analysis of the post-Godhra riots in Gujarat was launched here on Saturday. Based on hundreds of testimonies and eye-witness accounts, Threatened Existence: A Feminist Analysis of the Genocide in Gujarat is the work of women activists, lawyers and jurists from across the US, Germany, Britain and India. Among numerous reports that emerged out of the February-March 2002 carnage, this report stands out as the only one based entirely on womens experiences. The main point raised by them is that the genocidal project is ongoing in Gujarat, which was used as a laboratory and will now spread to other states, and they name politicians and leaders responsible for the state-sponsored carnage, South Asia Solidarity spokesperson Amrit Wilson said at the launch of the report, which delves into how the womans body turned into the site of the most inhumane violence. Under international law, crimes against humanity and genocide are grave violations which are also non-derogable (jus cogens)and can never be justified. Further these crimes are subject to international jurisdiction which triggers the authority and obligation of the international community as a whole, and every nation individually, to extradite and prosecute the perpetrators of these crimes in Gujarat, says the report, which is backed by the International Initiative for Justice in Gujarat. With its launch in the UK, the report recommends that the charitable and tax exempt status of international organisations that, directly or indirectly, support the Hindutva agenda and spew hatred and violence with public money be challenged and the funding of organisations participating in the instigation and implementation of genocide and crimes against humanity be investigated. We have been fighting against organisations like Sewa International and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh which have been instrumental in channelising NRI money to fund such programs back in India but the United Kingdom government has failed to even revoke their charity status, said Ms Wilson, who plans to send a copy of the report to UK foreign secretary Jack Straw next week. The launch of the report was accompanied by the world premiere of a documentary, Gujarat A Laboratory of Hindu Rashtra, which looks at the violence which engulfed Gujarat in which more than 2,000 women, children and men were brutally massacred, and many thousands more saw their families, homes and livelihoods destroyed. Using the events in villages and towns where the violence took place as a starting point, the film exposes the role of the Indian diaspora in promoting the genocide. |
