Sent on Saturday, this does not appear to have made the papers. I am particularly disappointed in The Guardian:
Dear Sir,
Dear Sir,
The Dalits, so-called “Untouchables”, are among the most oppressed people in the world, and are subject to rampant discrimination and worse in this and numerous other countries. The present Conservative Government has effectively re-legalised caste-based discrimination in the United Kingdom.
Between 1968 and 1973, the Chagossians were forcibly evicted from their home, the Chagos Islands of the British Indian Ocean Territory, in order to make way for an American military base that has since been implicated in extraordinary rendition, torture, and the waging of war in the Middle East.
The Rohingya people of Burma or Myanmar are also among the world’s most persecuted, being denied even citizenship itself on frankly racist grounds. They have received little or no support from Aung San Suu Kyi.
Jeremy Corbyn is the Honorary Chair of the Dalit Solidarity Network UK, he is the Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on the Chagos Islands, and he is a stalwart supporter of the Rohingya cause. We therefore have no hesitation in endorsing Jeremy Corbyn for Leader of the Labour Party. Unity Is Strength.
Yours faithfully,
David Lindsay, Lanchester, County Durham
Meena Varma, Director, Dalit Solidarity Network UK
Allen Vincatassin, President of the Provisional Government of Diego Garcia and the Chagos Islands
Tun Khin, Rohingya Human Rights Activist
You know everyone! Shame on the Guardian for not printing this, though. Shame on them all apart from the Morning Star, it'll have made it into that. But these three causes, like many others and everything to do with unions, anti-austerity or peace activism, shouldn't be confined to that even though it does do sterling work.
ReplyDeleteTun Khin is President of Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK. How come it doesn't say that here?
ReplyDeleteThat Organisation, as such, is strictly nonpartisan. Therefore, after consultation with the other leading figures in it, he chose to sign as a Rohingya Human Rights Activist, without mentioning the Organisation.
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