AI India pressurizes New Delhi against CHOGM participation

 Thursday, 24 October 2013 

Amnesty International India says about 35,000 people from India have so far supported its campaign to dissuade Prime Minister Manmohan Singh from attending the Commonwealth Head of Governments Meeting (CHOGM) in Sri Lanka, an AI-India statement said. 

The campaign began on October 15 and would continue till the start of CHOGM in November 2013, it added.

G. Ananthapadmanabhan, chief executive of AI-India, said in the statement, "India's staying away from the CHOGM will send a clear signal to President Mahinda Rajapaksa to take action to end human rights violation abuses in Sri Lanka. If the Indian Prime Minister attends the summit in Colombo, he will in effect be giving a stamp of approval to the countless past and ongoing grave human rights abuses in Sri Lanka."

To make the head of a government that continues to repress human rights and is persistently cracking down on dissent the Commonwealth chair would go against the principles of the Commonwealth," he said.

Both India and Britain are under intense pressure from various quarters who against their participation in the Colombo CHOGM.

Professor Sarawathy Rajendran, the Coordinator of the Solidarity Center of Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE), has petitioned the Chennai High Court urging India not to participate in the Colombo CHOGM due to genocide and war crimes committed by the Sri Lankan Government against Tamils. Acting Chief Justice Agarwal and Justice M.Sathyanarayana are due to hear the case number w.p28656/2o13.

Also, Kenya has lobbied other Commonwealth member countries in the African continent to boycott the Colombo CHOGM. Kenya was pushing several other African leaders to boycott the meeting as a mark of opposition against Britain.