From: murthy@ssd.dl.nec.com (Vasudev Murthy)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian
Subject: Dallas Amnesty International meeting on India
Date: 20 Nov 1992 08:58:51 -0600
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu


My wife and I attended a meeting of the Amnesty
International chapter in Dallas last night. I was very
impressed by their general objectiveness and attitude. Here
is a short report. Don't blast me if you don't like something.

We were the only two Indian citizens in a crowd of about 30.

The following were distributed:

   1) Excerpt from New York Times, Oct 14, 1992 Page A3
   titled "Indian Rights Group's Cry: Police Rape and
   Torture". The article was about the experiences of Mr.
   Ravi Nair of the South Asia Human Rights Documentation
   Center.

   2) Excerpt from the Dallas Morning News, November 19,
   1992 titled "Fighting the Caste System. India's
   untouchables starting to seek civil rights". This
   discusses bonded labourers and the efforts of some social
   workers to change things.

   3) Excerpt from the World Sikh News, November 13, 1992,
   Page 15, titled "India: Torture in the Cradle of
   Non-violence". This article refers to police atrocities
   in Punjab, West Bengal, Bihar, Delhi, Maharashtra, Andhra
   Pradesh and Kashmir. A small paragraph at the end refers to
   the Indian Govt's response to the Amnesty International
   Report on torture, rape and death in custody in India - a
   Commission to investigate Human Rights abuses has been
   set up.

   4) A suggested letter to C. Dinakar, IG of Police,
   Karnataka, appealing for his help in eliminating
   third-degree treatment in Jails.

   5) A Postcard addressed to Mr. Gyaltsen Norbu, Govt of
   Tibet Autonomous Region, Lhasa, Tibet, China urging him
   to release Jampel Changchub and Ngawang Phulchung, two
   Buddhist monks from the Drepung monastery in Lhasa, who
   have been imprisoned for 19 years for distributing, among
   other items, a copy of the Universal Declaration of Human
   Rights.

   The first speaker spoke of Amnesty International's
   happiness that their efforts have borne some fruit. He said
   India stands out in Asia as the only country that has
   actually finally admitted that it has  a problem and had
   taken some steps to correct the situation. He quoted the
   Kerala Police Chief as saying that Torture and Rape will
   have no place in his Department. He was encouraged that
   the Indian Govt had allowed Amnesty International to visit
   India. He praised India's free press, election process and
   judiciary. He read out a letter from Justice Bains thanking
   Amnesty International for working towards his release. He
   thought the Human Rights Commission setup was a very good step.
   He found it very interesting that refugees from so many
   Asian countries headed towards India, and praised its
   refugee policy. He said that contrary to popular belief,
   AI has condemned the violent practices of separatists in
   various parts of India.

   The second speaker spoke on Asia in general. He said that
   while the situation was not that good in India, it was
   miles ahead of every other country in Asia. In
   particular, he pointed to China (and Tibet), Burma, Vietnam,
   Cambodia and Thailand. The Burmese situation appeared
   pretty gruesome with ethnic cleansing, killing of HIV+
   woman deported from Thailand by cyanide injections etc.
  
   He also spoke out vehemantly against the use of the Death
   Penalty in the US and considered it a human rights
   violation at par with any other in any third world
   country.

   We were very impressed by their general tone and
   knowledge of issues. We thought the presentation was fair
   and quite unbiased.

   Thats all.


   Thanks



   Vasudev Murthy

-- 
Vasudev Murthy             Any opinions expressed are strictly  
murthy@asl.dl.nec.com      my own  and have nothing to do with
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Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian