SFJ referendum campaign barely visible in the West

By Sanjeev Sharma

New Delhi, Dec 16 (IANS) For most of the world, the Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) referendum campaign is barely visible – a mere curiosity in the backwaters of the internet, wrote Terry Milewski in an article for Gateway House.

It is simply not news – although it might be if it were banned in the West, not just in India. For Canada, Britain and the US, freedom of speech is the rule and there's been no effort to silence SFJ. Although this irritates Indian authorities, Western politicians do not pay any price for tolerating speech which voters hardly notice, Milewski said.

Rather, what is missing in the West is not Indian-style censorship, but loud and public disapproval by political and community leaders. They also have freedom of speech – but they rarely use it, even to denounce the veneration of Talwinder Parmar in Canada, where some key electoral districts hang in the balance. Traditional vote-bank politics leads all parties to avoid even mild criticism of Khalistani propaganda, the article said.

US-based separatist group Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) head Gurpatwant Singh Pannun has shifted his aim to Amarinder Singh's successor as Chief Minister of Punjab, Charanjit Channi.

The SFJ video thunders a warning, leaning heavily on reminders of the murder of CM Beant Singh, with pictures of the victim and the wreckage of his car to reinforce the message, wrote Terry Milewski in an article for Gateway House.

Pannun has recently produced and starred in two menacing videos aimed at the former and current Chief Ministers of Punjab – Capt Amarinder Singh and Charanjit Singh Channi – both staunch opponents of the Khalistan movement.

The first video, entitled "I Am Dilawar," was released on the anniversary of a 1995 suicide bombing by Dilawar Singh, who killed Chief Minister Beant Singh, along with sixteen bystanders. Illustrated with grim scenes of the wreckage of Beant Singh's car, the video features closeups of a portrait of Capt Amarinder being shot in the face by an off-screen gunman. Any crackdown on Khalistanis, the video warns, will have consequences – perhaps the same fate that befell Beant Singh: "Capt Amarinder is following the footsteps of slain CM Beant", as per the article.

Such videos are posted and re-posted on a sprawling network of websites and Facebook pages which animate a frenetic game of whack-a-mole, as Indian authorities manage to shut one down, only to see another pop up in its place. This allows a page to run Sikhs for Justice material for years, linking to an SFJ home page and using the SFJ name and logo, only to be disowned as unofficial if trouble arises, Milewski said.

But wherever the content appears, the veneration of terrorist martyrs is a constant. In yet another video, Pannun shakes his finger at the camera and promises to give new iPhones to anyone who flies the Khalistan flag in honour of "Shaheed" Beant Singh, one of the bodyguards who shot Indira Gandhi.

Despite such provocative content, Sikhs for Justice has exploited Facebook's willingness to keep its internet presence alive in the face of the Indian government's attempts to suppress it, the article said.

(Ssanjeev Sharma can be reached at [email protected])