Here is the link to the debate yesterday on
Press Freedom and Safety of Protesters: India
The debate was a result of the
petition created by Gurcharn Singh (LD) (Councillor for St Mary's Ward, Maidenhead ). He is quoted to have been moved by the conditions in India. His family is from a farming background in the Punjab, and he was moved when he found his mother in tears watching the Indian news channels’ coverage of the protests. He then spoke with relatives in India about the distress they were in, and with members of his local community.
The ones to participate were -
Scottish National Party
Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk)
Brendan O'Hara (Argyll and Bute)
Labour
Mr Khalid Mahmood, (Birmingham, Perry Barr)
Tahir Ali (Birmingham, Hall Green)
Mr Virendra Sharma (Ealing, Southall)
Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East)
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough)
Naz Shah (Bradford West)
Nadia Whittome (Nottingham East)
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington)
Sam Tarry (Ilford South)
Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon)
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)
Liberal Democrat
Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD);
Conservative
Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet)
Paul Bristow (Peterborough) (Con)
Adam Holloway (Gravesham) (Con);
Except for Theresa Villiers, others were all critical.
Usual bits about 750 million Indians involved in agriculture; 250 million involved in protest; widespread protests; lack of Press Freedom; Journalists being stopped for reporting about the protests; Amnesty being hounded; India ruled by fascist/extreme far right government of Modi/BJP; opponents of Modi arrested arbitrarily; several famers have died during the protest; the protest is a result of farmer suicides; farmers with small land holding will suffer due to the change in farm laws; multinationals will take over farming side lining poor farmers; blocking of internet at the protest site; attack on minorities in India (in this case Sikhs)
Martyn Day
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Gilles Verniers, a political scientist at Ashoka University, has said:
“Every farmer community everywhere is discussing these farm laws. It is not just a local or regional matter.”
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Across India, some 750 million people are directly engaged in agriculture. That is around half of India’s population. Land has been described as sacred, and farming seen as a religious duty or way of life. It is a very significant issue for India, and has a resonance with the Indian diaspora around the globe, and for concerned environmental and political activists.
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Khalid Mohammad
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Huge numbers of farmers have committed suicide.
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Jeremy Corbyn
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They are protesting because they are predominantly small farmers on less than five acres, many of them very poor. Over 22,000 have committed suicide in the past few years as a result of the stress they are under.
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Tahir Ali (usual Pakistani rants)
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Their protests have brought the world’s attention on India, and particularly on the abuses of the extreme far-right Government led by Prime Minister Modi and the Bharatiya Janata party. The protests are for a just cause, as the farmers are fighting against significant privatisation of agriculture, which would negatively impact on their livelihoods. As we all know, however, the BJP and Modi have responded to the protests with repression. Political opponents of Modi in India are at risk of arbitrary arrest, and the civil liberties of all Indians are being eroded by an extremist, right-wing Government.
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The Government’s history of abuses and criminality is well documented. They continue to abuse the human and civil rights not only of farmers, but of Kashmiri people through the military occupation of the region.
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Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi
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Hundreds of farmers have died already because of the freezing cold and because of ill health while protesting.
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Trade unionists, human rights activists and journalists, including young women, have been arrested, with reports of sexual assault and torture while in custody.
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The millions of protesters are from across India and different faiths, yet because a significant number of them are Sikhs, they have been singled out and branded separatists and terrorists by unscrupulous elements of the mainstream Indian media. It is part of a pattern where Muslim Indians are labelled as Pakistanis, Christians as being under foreign influence, and Sikhs as Khalistani separatists—but we see you, and so does the world.
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Naz Shah
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More than 52% of India’s farmers are living in debt, which is causing a shocking increase in the suicide rate. In 2019 alone, nearly 10,300 Indian farmers killed themselves.
Layla Moran
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This is no small matter: more than 250 million farmers have been protesting since August last year. We are witnessing what could be the largest organised protest in human history, yet the police brutality and arrests against peaceful protesters and journalists covering the protests are of deep concern.
Tens of thousands of police have been mobilised across India to quash the protests. Barricades and roadblocks have been set up to block protesters, and more than 248 farmers have died just outside New Delhi in camps. Some have died of health issues and others from suicide.
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Nadia Whitmore
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In total, 250 million workers went on strike in solidarity. That is the largest strike in world history. In response, in order to stoke communal violence, the Indian Government-controlled media has demonised protesters as Sikh separatists. Protesters have been met with state repression and brutality.
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When Modi was Chief Minister of Gujarat, he was banned from entering the EU, Britain and the US for his part in instigating the 2012 riots that saw more than 1,000 Muslims killed, so it should concern everyone that this Conservative Government are a close ally of the far-right Hindutva regime in India.
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Seema Malhotra
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Medical support staff have been beaten at rallies. Concerns have been raised about journalists. The Sikh Human Rights Group, an NGO with special consultative status at the UN, has received highly credible evidence, in the form of 20-plus first instance reports from the senior advocate overseeing cases, about allegations of unsustainable charges being made by the police. Those who have made any comment against the abuses have been subject to a tirade of abuse from far-right forces. I
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