ISLAMABAD – Indians and Pakistani human rights activists have come togetherto urge the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation not to honor Indian PrimeMinister Narendra Modi with an award in light of the alarming human rightssituation in Indian-occupied Kashmir.
According to reports, two prominent lawyers and activists of Indian originhave strongly urged the Gates Foundation not to honour Prime MinisterNarendra Modi with an award for his sanitation and toilet access projectacross India.
The two lawyers cite the repressive actions of the Indian PM in Indianoccupied Kashmir, where thousands have been detained and tortured incustody as a military curfew in the valley stretches well into a secondmonth, as the reason behind their call.
“While public health is undoubtedly a priority in India and around theworld, such an honour would come as his Hindu nationalist party has incitedviolence against minorities,” the two lawyers said in an article publishedin The Washington Post on Saturday.
Suchitra Vijayan is a lawyer and executive director of the Polis Project,and Arjun Singh Sethi is a human rights lawyer and adjunct professor of lawat Georgetown University Law Center.
Modi has silenced dissent and curtailed freedom of expression,” the twolawyers wrote in the American publication. Indian news website TheScroll reports that a group of South Asians have echoed these calls.
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“Under Modi’s leadership, religious minorities are facing heightened levelsof violence, exclusion, and discrimination,” the group have said in an openletter to the Gates Foundation.
The group further added that gross human rights violations in India mustnot be diminished, denied, or compartmentalised, and especially not byphilanthropic entities such as the Gates Foundation which seek to addressglobal inequality.
The letter claims that the award would undercut and demoralise India’sbeleaguered civil society and signal the world’s willingness to overlook,and remain silent, in the face of the Indian government’s brazen violationsof human rights principles.
India PM Modi had revoked the special constitutional status of occupiedKashmir on August 5 and imposed a military curfew in the valley,imprisoning thousands of ordinary Kashmiris. Pakistan has called for a UNprobe into the rights violations in the valley.
