New Delhi, December 20: The Donald Trump administration has indicated that it has no plans to act against the United States-based group Sikhs for Justice (SFJ), which is planning to organise a worldwide “referendum” in 2020 to demand secession of Punjab from India, an issue that may emerge as an irritant to Indo-US ties.
When asked about the US government’s position on SFJ, a US State Department spokesperson said on Tuesday: “We have freedom of speech in the United States, we have freedom of association, and these are bedrock principles of American society.
We have freedom of speech in this country that’s protected by our First Amendment, and that is a bedrock of American society and the American Constitution.” Earlier, the UK government’s inaction against an SFJ rally in London in August had irked India. SFJ has said that it aims to get five million votes in support of independence of Punjab through the proposed “referendum” and present the results to the United Nations.
It plans are to hold the socalled referendum in 20 cities including in India, US, Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand. It claims that the referendum is a political opinion and its peaceful propagation is protected under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But various other Sikh organisations have asked SFJ to spell out its plan.
Dal Khalsa and Simranjeet Singh Mann-led Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar) has urged SFJ to clear the “vagueness and ambiguity” in its referendum proposal. ET had earlier reported that although SFJ claims to be a human rights advocacy group, it has links with Pakistan and its website is being managed from Karachi. SFJ also plans to organise a rally in Kartarpur in 2019 in favour of the 2020 referendum.
Source Economic Times
