[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 139 (Wednesday, October 8, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1965-E1966]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        INDIA RAIDS SIKH CHURCH, SHOWS ITS RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. LANE EVANS

                              of illinois

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, October 8, 1997

  Mr. EVANS. Mr. Speaker, on September 4, the same day that this 
Congress voted against

[[Page E1966]]

an amendment to cut aid to India, Indian security forces attacked a 
Sikh church, which is called a Gurdwara. They claimed to be looking for 
a terrorist, but they had no search warrant and they did not ask the 
Gurdwara management to send the alleged terrorist out. Instead, they 
just stormed this house of worship and tortured six Granthis, the 
clergy of the Gurdwara.
  India tells the world that it is a secular democracy. This raid on a 
Sikh house of worship proves otherwise. Clearly, Sikhs, among others, 
do not enjoy religious freedom under Indian rule. Narinder Singh, a 
spokesman for the Golden Temple in Amritsar, the center and seat of the 
Sikh religion, puts it in perspective. On August 11, he told National 
Public Radio,

       The Indian government all the time they boast that they're 
     democratic, they're secular, but they have nothing to do with 
     democracy, they have nothing to do with secularism. They try 
     to crush Sikhs just to please the majority.

  This is the same Golden Temple that was subjected to a brutal 
military assault on June 4, 1984. To this day, it remains under police 
surveillance.
  On June 29, a man named Gurdial Singh, who is the elected mayor of 
the village of Khiala Khurd, was stripped by the police in front of the 
people of his village. He was then held upside down while Indian forces 
beat and tortured him. All this happened to Gurdial Singh because he is 
a baptized Sikh.
  The most revered mosque in Kashmir was subjected to an attack similar 
to the massacre at the Golden Temple. Many Muslim prisoners are force-
fed pork, which is against their dietary laws. This is a form of 
emotional and spiritual torture.
  India still enforces an old law against encouraging a Hindu to change 
his religion. This law expired years ago, but is treated as if it is 
still on the books. It is as if the United States still enforced the 
Alien and Sedition Acts of the Fugitive Slave Law. Some of the more 
militant Hindus even suggested that the late Mother Teresa might not be 
worthy of honor because the Sisters of Mercy persuaded some people to 
embrace Christianity. This is secular India.
  Secular India is a land marked by the government-sponsored murders of 
over 200,000 Christians since 1947, more than 250,000 Sikhs since 1984, 
over 53,000 Muslims since 1988, and thousands upon thousands of other 
minorities. Here is a land in which religious persecution reigns.
  America is the moral voice of the world, the bastion of freedom for 
the oppressed peoples all over this globe. It is our moral duty to do 
what we can to end this kind of oppression. We should formally declare 
India a country that practices religious oppression and impose 
appropriate sanctions, up to and including an embargo if necessary. We 
should stop providing monetary support for a government that practices 
religious persecution, violates human rights, and continues to develop 
nuclear weapons. And we should speak out strongly in support of the 
freedom movements in Punjab, Khalistan, in Christian Nagaland, in 
Kashmir, and throughout South Asia and the world.
  Let freedom ring in South Asia.

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