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OPEN LETTER TO
FOREIGN SECRETARY
MR JACK STRAW MP
23 March 2005
Rt. Honourable Jack Straw MP
Foreign Secretary
Foreign & Commonwealth Office
Kings Charles Street
London SW18 2AH
Dear Mr Foreign
Secretary,
Re: Narendra
Modi
It was on August
11, 2003 that we had to request you to declare the Chief Minister of
Gujarat Mr Narendra Modi as a persona non grata. In support of our
request we had produced excerpts from a commentary of the BBC that,
referring to a leaked report compiled by the British High Commission in
New Delhi said:
“A
senior British High Commission official in India who reported on these
‘riots’ to the Foreign Office in London wrote: these pogroms ‘had all
the hallmarks of ethnic cleansing and that reconciliation between Hindus
and Muslims is impossible while the chief minister remains in power.’
And it, ‘far from being spontaneous, was planned, possibly months in
advance, carried out by an extremist Hindu organisation with the support
of the state government.’” (emphasis added) (http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1951000/1951471.stm
Amnesty
International’s report released in January this year refers to most
horrific sexual violence and humiliation meted out on Muslim women in
Gujarat in 2002. Earlier India’s own National Commission of Human
Rights, Concerned Citizen’s Tribunal and several foreign bodies had
produced damning reports on the crimes committed by Modi’s governmental
machinery.
In our letters of
11, 13 and 14 August 2003 we had produced excerpts from the venomous
speeches of the criminal Chief Minister of Gujarat that established
clearly his role in instigating anti-Muslim violence in Gujarat.
Mr Foreign
Secretary, we had drawn your attention towards the fact that being a
party to the Genocide Convention, 1957 and Rome Statute of the
International Criminal Court 1998, Britain had the obligation to prevent
and punish international crimes such as genocide and crimes against
humanity.
In
addition, there are a number of resolutions by the United Nations
Security Council and General Assembly generally calling upon all states,
to bring to justice those responsible for crimes under international
law, including genocide and crimes against humanity. Legal scholars and
experts opine that “the application of international law as part of the
law of the land means that, subject to the overriding effect of statute
law, rights and duties flowing from rules of customary international law
will be recognized and given effect by English courts without the need
for any specific act adopting those rules into English law”. (Oppenheim’s
International Law, 9th edition)
Unfortunately,
your office had then responded with a very official and diplomatic
rejection of our request as it had found all the reports, even the one
compiled by British High Commissioner himself, as “insufficient grounds”
to refuse visa to Modi.
Now that the
United States has accepted these grounds as sufficient to revoke visa
for Modi, can we expect the British Government to use these grounds also
as sufficient to refuse entry to Modi in Britain.
We hardly need to
emphasise the fact that there are 165,000 Indian Muslims in
England the majority of who are of Gujrati origin. Neither do we need to
create your awareness (as your Blackburn and Darwen constituency has
many Gujrati constituents), that many Muslim Gujrati’s have been
directly or indirectly affected by the pogroms organised by Modi. Let us
remind you that among the victims of Modi’s Hindutva there were three
British nationals. Surely if Modi is allowed to be welcomed by a bunch
of fascists in Britain, it would be tantamount to insensitivity and
indifference to the pain of their relatives and without doubt such a
move will be like rubbing salt on their wounds.
Lastly, during our
last meeting at your offices, We had provided you with video tape
evidence of Narendra Modi’s words from a televised documentary in which
he stated that the British Government agenda was to spread lies. We ask
you whether it is in the British interest to allow such a person to
visit the UK as our guest?
Sincerely yours
Mohamed Munaf
Zeena
Chairman
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