South Asia Citizens Web

In the face of escalating war threats, Iran’s Network of Iranian Labor Associations (NILA) sent the message below to Amnesty International’s December 10 Human Rights Day Event in Chicago on Human Rights in Iran.

Many years ago, when some of us argued about the ills of the present and, more to the point, the ills of contemporary India, we would be asked by our elders where such ideals had ever been implemented. ’In China!’ we’d reply without hesitation’ Peoples’ China was our El Dorado, the land of promise. Under the leadership of the Great Helmsman, Chairman Mao, the Chinese Communist Party was looking after the true interests of Chinese peasants and workers, and marching towards the socialist future. Nay, as we were communists and hence internationalists, the Great, Glorious and Correct Chinese Communist Party - GGC-CCP for short - represented the oppressed people of the entire world! China was the future transported into the present. Our elders and betters would point out the totalitarian nature of the regime, the total lack of freedom of speech and political democracy. What freedom, we’d reply. Freedom for whom?

the environment and the well-being of people in general should be treated with more respect than industrial/profit-making interests. By writing this letter, we are soliciting your stance on these issues in writing. In the interest of democracy and transparency, we feel we are entitled to a response from you.

Four decades after the creation of Bangladesh, the war in 1971 remains an enigma for a majority of Pakistanis. It is now time that we boldly discuss what happened during that turbulent period in our history.

Neither the sangh parivar nor the BJP has ever betrayed any great fondness for liberal parliamentary democracy.