6000 Sikhs vote for Khalistan Referendum in Geneva

6000 Sikhs vote for Khalistan Referendum in Geneva

GENEVA (Dunya News) - Over 6000 Sikhs from Switzerland, France, Italy and Germany cast their votes for Khalistan Referendum in Geneva to kickstart the European phase of the Punjab voting.

Sikhs For Justice (SFJ), the organiser, paid tribute to thousands who gathered defying heavy snowfall and bad weather conditions to send a strong message to India that Sikhs wanted freedom from India – coinciding with the United Nations Human Rights Days.

The voting took place near United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) headquarters.Sikhs For Justice (SFJ), the organiser of the Khalistan Referendum, said that the voting day for 10 December was picked up in Geneva to coincide with the International Human Rights Day. The Khalistan Referendum voting took place under the supervision of the independent Punjab Referendum Commission (PRC) which will announce the results when all phases are completed in few months.

Citing 2021 “Equality” theme of UN Human Rights Day, the Sikhs For Justice General Counsel Gurpatwant Singh Pannun stated that “Sikh people are facing existential threat and their right to life and liberty is in danger under Indian governance and they need liberation from the Indian Hindutva occupation which is geared against the Sikh religion and identity”. “Independence of Punjab is the only solution,” said Pannun who is camping in Geneva for European phase of Khalistan Referendum.

The New York based attorney Gurpatwant Singh Pannun said that Sikhs have shown to the world how to beat Indian fake news and propaganda against Sikhs by taking to the ballot boxes. He said the aim of the referendum was to show that Sikhs believed in exercising their right through the democratic means of ballot box, not the guns and bullets.

SFJ leader Paramjeet Singh Pamma said that Sikhs across the UK and Europe had shown to the world that they hated India and didn’t want to remain its part.

Pamma said that Sikhs were an independent nations prior to Indian occupation and they aspired to have an independent state. He said the Indian govt was involved in genocide of Sikhs who wanted to protect their religion and culture.

After the voting was over, Sikhs marched towards the Broken Chair, outside the UNHRC building, to stage a protest where speeches were made by Khalistan leaders. Speaking from the specially erected stage, the Sikhs leaders called on the United Nations and the international community to take notice of the Indian govt’s actions against Sikhs all over the world.

Prior to the Khalistan Referendum voting and rally in Geneva, the Sikhs For Justice (SFJ) submitted a report “India’s Criminalization of Khalistan Referendum” to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in a special meeting. The SFJ’s General Counsel Gurpatwant Singh Pannun and Dr Bakhshish Singh Sandhu, President Council of Khalistan gave a presentation to UN officials on the Sikhs’ right to self-determination under international law and Narendra Modi government’s use of violence and sedition laws against Khalistan Referendum activists, in India and abroad.

The Sikh delegation informed the UN officials that Modi’s Hindu supremacist government is forcing Indian nationalism on the Sikh people in India to distort their culture and history. They told the UN officials that the Modi regime is using social media platforms Facebook, twitter, Instagram and YouTube to push hyper Indian nationalism and to suppress the Khalistan Referendum campaign by blocking the contents and posts advocating for liberation of Punjab from India through the means of ballot. The dossier handed over to the OHCHR states that the Sikh community suffered at the hands of the Indian government in 1984 where they were the victims of a genocidal assault on one of their holiest temples known as the Darbar Sahib, the golden temple of Amritsar.

It reads: “Once they had completed the destruction of the golden temple, the Indian army unleashed a wave of pogroms in which Sikhs were being hunted down by the police of Punjab, as well as extremist citizens. Many of these officers received cash rewards from the then finance minister in exchange for murdering Sikhs in faked “encounters” which essentially allowed the police to conduct assassinations with not only impunity, but cash reward.

The treatment of minorities in India has been the major fault line for the Republic since its independence, and as to date, the fault line has only grown larger owing to the abysmal human rights record of the successive Indian governments which are prone to dismissing domestic and international law at its convenience.

“Following these developments, the Sikhs’ desire and case for self-determination has only strengthened. Though the violence of the decades passed has transformed in shape and mode but not largely subsided, the Sikh community vivid with its memory, is now presenting to the government of India and ultimately, the world, a democratic and lawful solution to realize the right of self-determination.”

The dossier to the UN body highlights that in light of the increasing popularity of the “Punjab Referendum” campaign, the Republic of India has been determined to crush the peaceful movement by filing a litany of false charges and labelling supporters of the ‘ Punjab Referendum” as “terrorists.”

The dossier to the UN highlights that the Indian government has done everything within its power to label these agitating farmers as terrorists and the government agents have gone as far as to arrest, torture and sexually assault protesting farmers.

It reveals that Guraptwant Singh Pannun, while being a licensed attorney in the state of New York, faces an estimated 40 criminal charges in India solely due to his activism in exposing Indian human rights violations and his continued work on the secession of Punjab from India.

The referendum campaign started in London on 31st October 2021 and voting was held over five different cities in the UK with heavy significant Sikh community presence.