LONDON, UK—Gurpreet Kaur, a journalist in-training from the UK proposed to Louis B. Susman – the current US Ambassador to the United Kingdom, to amend the term “1984 Anti-Sikh Pogroms” to “Genocide” in US International Religious Freedom reports related to the massacre of Sikhs during November 1984.
She said, “The purpose of this proposal is to align the ‘term’ with the organisational nature of November 1984 attacks on Sikhs across India, which makes the attacks crime of “Genocide” as per Article 2 of the U.N. Convention on Genocide. The amendment is critical to improving the way the US government promotes international religious freedom and helps it achieving its goal of serving the persecuted minorities”.
The US Commission of International Religious Freedom monitors the disturbing state of religious freedom worldwide and makes independent policy recommendations about the worst violators to the President, the Secretary of State, and the Congress. The only such government commission of its kind in the world, it publishes valuable annual reports and provides accountability to the State Department to ensure it is accurately reporting on religious freedom violations and using all the tools at the disposal of the United States government to promote religious freedom.
She added that there is a need to create the awareness about massive and systematic violations of human rights and that it was not a simply community issue. Specific “intent to destroy a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, in whole or in part” is the most important and outstanding difference between genocide and community riots.
She has also thanked the US in her letter for making a tremendous contribution, in assisting Sikhs, in a supportive and promising way. Ms. Kaur stated that the matter has been brought to the Sikhs for Justice attorney Gurpatwant Singh Pannun.
