Sanku wrote:
Where has anyone asked for abuse of human rights of anyone?
Why are you deliberately saying untruths?
If you claim to be not , can you copy paste a single quote, where any one has asked for human right abuse?
brihaspati has repeatedly said that the test of the British government's commitment to fight the Khalistani movement is whether it uses illegal methods, just like it used against the IRA and its supporters / sympathisers. Even brihaspati is not denying it, so I wonder why you are getting hot under the collar. brihaspati keeps referring to the Stevens Inquiries as if they are the UK manual for counter-terrorism, when in fact the Stevens Inquiries are seen within the UK as highlighting what the British security services should NOT have done in the fight against the IRA. I find the irony simply too delicious that brihaspati keeps referring to the Stevens Inquiries to highlight the methods the British government should and could use against the Khalistan supporters, if only their intentions towards India were friendly and sincere.
Lisa wrote:
Brihaspati,
What exactly would you have the UK government do if you could insruct within the remit of UK law?
brihaspati wrote:
Lisa ji,
your question is interesting. But first, everything that the UK as a state does going against individuals and organizations - is done within UK law?
Lisa wrote:
Brihaspati Ji
I have asked a very simple question, what would you have the UK legally do. KIndly asvise us of your opinion with regards to Khalistanis for example.
brihaspati wrote:
Lisa ji,
my post was very simple actually. Why do you specifically restrict UK action to "legal" onlee when it is about dealing with anti-Indian organizations or activities? UK does not restrict itself to strictly legal operations onlee in such cases.
Lisa wrote:
Brihaspatiji,
No answers despite two polite requests! May be it’s because you don’t know how things really work in the UK.
brihaspati wrote:
No I did expect you to insist pointedly on the "legal" process onlee.
Both the Khalistanis and the IRA's would be observed collecting funds. But the information on the IRA would be used to help further tighten the noose around the IRA's support base to physically eliminate the IRA networks. We see nothing of the same on the Khalistanis.
This was why I also politely repeatedly asked you as to
(1) why you are restricting yourself to "legal" onlee methods when I did not specify as such in my original post
(2) whether or not UK state regime always restricts itself to the legal onlee when dealing with separatism.
eklavya wrote:
brihaspati, so your grouse is that the UK is not using illegal methods to deal with supporters of Sikh separatism and terrorism in the UK? You would like the UK government to break UK laws to deal with Sikh separatism and terrorism in the UK?
brihaspati wrote:
well ekalavya ji,
Its "absence of laws" as per Lisa ji. So it was not illegal to do what was done against the IRA, and therefore would not be illegal either against the Khalistanis.
brihaspati wrote:
I asked you two very simple questions - repeatedly - why do you restrict yourself to "legal" methods only? Do you think that UK has always used only legal methods to deal with separatist violence or separatist organizing towards violence?
eklavya wrote:
Brihaspati, Lisa said that there is no law against separatism. There are a great many laws that constrain the behaviour of the UK government and law enforcement authorities.
Now, please could you spell out exactly what you would like the UK government to do against supporters of Sikh separatism in the UK, many of which are British and therefore also EU citizens. Detention without charge? Phone tapping without warrant? Intimidation? Murder?
brihaspati wrote:
ekalavya,
Lisa ji repeatedly insisted that the UK gov and system is constrained to work within the letter of the law - and hence the implication was that the inaction against Khalistanis came out of such constraints of the letter of the law.
I have given a summary of the Stevens report and other related revelations - as available online. If as per Lisa ji - all this is consistent with following the letter of the British law as regards dealing with separatism - I see no reason as to why similar "legal" methods cannot be applied to Khalistanis.
But I hope whatever is available of the Stevens report and a couple of follow-up investigations should show my justification for my statement.
brihaspati wrote:
ekalavya,
On any insurrection/violent separatisms - different countries will have different "perceptions" - which has nothing to do with their respective "spirit/letter of laws". They would be in their political/military/big-biz/electoral and "national interests" as perceived by ruling coteries. It has no impact on the actual bone of contention here - applicability of methods applied on the IRA - on the khalistanis - by "letter of law" following UK institutions.
The accusation was that I was applying an "Indian prism" on the situation, but in fact I am simply applying a British prism - because the prism is looking comparatively at dealing with IRA and Khalistanis from the obviously "legal/letter of the law following" British prism.
eklavya wrote:
brihaspati, so your contention is that the British government is free to break the British law, and so you would like the British government to use illegal methods to pursue British supporters of Sikh separatism?
brihaspati wrote:
I implied that UK gov/agencies did not move with all that they had moved on other "separatisms", as laid out even in public portions of the reports on IRA-agency nexus, - on Khalistanis, because of non-legal, possibly political or touted nationa interests perspectives. It is not about the "letter of the law".
eklavya wrote:
brihaspati, British intelligence and law enforcement agencies are required to work within the letter of the law. So, Lisa is quite correct on this point. By bringing up the treatment of the IRA, you have only highlighted that in exceptional circumstances governments occasionally end up on the wrong side of their own laws. If your yardstick for how the British state deals with Sikh separatists is how they dealt with the IRA, then you are being a bit naive. I was hoping that the US Government-IRA example would make you understand that each state has its own perceptions and interests and acts accordingly; to expect the British state to break its laws for the benefit of the Indian state is tilting at windmills, to say the least.
brihaspati wrote:
If the police are "required" to be constrained "by the letter of the law", then obviously the stuff reported in the investigation findings are a total lie. Both cannot be true at the same time. If formal pious statements are acceptable as covers for something illegal underneath, why is it wrong to expect from the "legal" viewpoint for the UK authorities to move similarly against the Khalistanis - if according to many posts on this thread, they are "friends" of India. Further, some have even suggested that it is UK which needs India or is keen to brush up relations because of economic reasons.
So from the wider geo-political, and even the cynical "self interest onlee" line that you endorse, why is it "dunce/daft/naive" for Indians to expect such returns of favour from the UK?
On a separate note - would you personally like or dislike if the UK gov actually went ahead with the IRA style move against Khalistanis organizing in the UK?
eklavya wrote:
brihaspati, the IRA were violent terrorists, and therefore the intelligence and law enforcement agencies got involved.
The separatists in Scotland are running the country; and no one in their right mind in the UK would propose or support any form of intelligence or law enforcement agency action, legal or illegal, against the Scottish nationalists. So Lisa is right, the UK does nothing against its own law-abiding separatists, let alone the separatists that want to split India.
If someone is planning to kill people, the full force of the law should come down on them. My strong preference would be for the law enforcement and intelligence agencies to always act within the law; and if required, for the laws to be made tougher. I find it paradoxical, but I accept, that law enforcement agencies can sometimes do their job (i.e. protect the public) only by breaking the law.
However, I do not expect the UK government to act against lawful political activity, even of the type that I personally find distasteful, like Sikh separatism.
brihaspati wrote:
You are indeed okay with bending the law, or not strictly-constrained-by-the-letter-of-the-law where separatism is concerned, as long as such bending is not done in favour of India and strictly for perceived British interests onlee.
Your example of benevolent treatment of Scottish independence movement compared to the IRA - is slightly problematic because you are editing out the underlying British ruling attitudes towards the Irish, that might have gone dormant now, but comes out often in subtle and not so subtle ways - when alcohol, or other relaxing substances pushes civility masks away. The Irish are still bogmen/and halfway between the "n" word and civilized toff world of proper humanity represented by pure Englishmen.
The Scotts will be treated better than the Irish - because of perceptions of identity. The identity schema of UK's modeling of people, has an elaborate hierarchy. Scotts are still not as good as proper human beings from Anglia say, but yet higher than bogmen.
eklavya wrote:
Since the Scottish independence issue leaves your thesis fatally holed below the waterline, you merrily brand the British ruling classes as racists. God forbid if someone questions the prejudices you display in ample measure.
brihaspati wrote:
And the tragedy of your perfidy is that you excuse British "bending of the law" to tackle Irish separatism, as necessary under "exceptional circumstances" but your conscience suddenly flares up in indignation when it comes to asking the Brit gov to do the same against Khalistanis.
brihaspati wrote:
If all the methods applied to prevent even mere non-terror political activism was well within the constraints of the law - the question originally was a speculation as to what prevented the application of the same logic and mindset in the UK admin to prevent fundraising and activism among Khalistanis.
My whole contention was to try and make people think as to why there are selective applications of doctrine by the Brits where India is concerned - and which seems uncannily unchanging from the imperialist days. It has relevance - because the Kahalistanis, jihad in the wider AFPak-subcontinental domain, ISI, and UK MI, have all long been appearing together in various search paths for connections.
brihaspati wrote:
You repeatedly keep silent and avoid the issue - when I point out that the Brits were using the same methods on both violent as well as non-violent activists. If these were applicable on non-violent actvists on the excuse that such activities would ultimately feed into "violence", then the same logic applies for "peaceful" Khalistanis too.
Under what logic you are defending the actions on nonviolents in one case and denying on another?