UK
Asian Voice - Saturday 16th June 2012
Political Sketchbook www.PoliticalAnimal.me
Alpesh Patel’s
The Politics of Killing Children Children and babies are being targeted and killed in Syria. Britain is pushing for military action to stop the murder of children. India, who desires a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, does not want such action and so presumably would have stood alongside Russia and China in vetoing such humanitarian based military action by the US and UK. Thank god India does not have a permanent seat on the UN Security Council – we don’t need another moral equivalent of China and Russia. Below is what I wish the Indian Ambassador to the UN had said. He didn’t. At the end, I reveal who did actually say what is written below. Mr President, India considers the actions of the Government of Syria in killing children to be an act of war upon humanity and as a member of the family of nations, India shall act to defend the citizens of Syria and considers itself as of now formally in a state of war with the nation of Syria. You can imagine what a bitter blow it is to me that all my long struggle to win peace has failed. Yet I cannot believe that there is anything more or anything different I could have done and that would have been more successful. Up to the very last it would have been quite possible to have arranged a peaceful and honourable settlement between Syria and its people, but Assad would not have it. He had evidently made up his mind to attack whatever happened; and although he now says he has put forward reasonable proposals which were rejected, that is not a true statement. The proposals were never shown; and although they were announced in a broadcast on Thursday night, Assad did not wait to make comment on them, but ordered his troops to cross the frontier villages.
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His actions show convincingly that there is no chance of expecting that this man will ever give up his practice of using force to gain his will. He can only be stopped by force. We and Britain are today, in fulfilment of our obligations, going to the aid of Syria's citizens, who are so bravely resisting this wicked and unprovoked attack on her people. We have a clear conscience. We have done all that any country could do to establish peace. The situation in which no word given to Syria's ruler could be trusted and no people or country could feel themselves safe has become intolerable. And now that we have resolved to finish it, I know that you will play your part with calmness and courage. At such a moment as this the assurances of support that we have received from the Commonwealth are a source of profound encouragement to us. When I have finished speaking certain detailed announcements will be made on behalf of the Government. Give these your closest attention. The Government have made plans under which it will be possible to carry on the work of the nation in the days of stress and strain that may be ahead. But these plans need your help. Now may God bless you all. May He defend the right. It is the evil things that we shall be fighting against – brute force, bad faith, injustice, oppression and persecution – and against them I am certain that the right will prevail." Actually, the Indian Ambassador to the UN did not say the above. No, the British PM said it. He said it in 1939 when Britain declared war on Germany for acts of genocide. But then there was not Russian and China or UN to block the war through a veto.
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British Sikh and Hindu communities protest against the term 'Asian' Leaders of Britain’s Sikh and Hindu communities are protesting that the term “Asian” is being used incorrectly to describe the men responsible for sex-grooming gangs when the perpetrators are in fact nearly all of Pakistani origin. In a joint statement by Sikh and Hindu organisations on the so-called “Asian” grooming gangs, the Network of Sikh Organisations, the Hindu Forum of Britain and the Sikh Media Monitoring Group say the use of the term “Asian” to describe the perpetrators of these crimes is wholly inaccurate and unfair to other communities of Asian origin. The Hindu and Sikh leaders are protesting also that the religion of a person is always noted when in custody in police stations, when on remand in prison and when
convicted. Tim Loughton, the Children’s Minister, said this week that Britain needed an open debate about “issues around culture” that may explain why men of Pakistani heritage are over-represented among offenders prosecuted for street-grooming sex offences against white girls. Nine members of a sexgrooming network in Rochdale were jailed last week for child-sex offences against troubled girls aged 12 to 16. Their victims were lured with free food and alcohol then sexually abused over a two-year period in flats and houses across northern England. The trial was the latest in a series of prosecutions in which men from the Pakistani community were accused of offences against vulnerable young teenagers.
Surgeon lay on floor to look up woman’s skirt A heart surgeon allegedly lay on a supermarket floor so he could look up a woman shopper’s skirt, a court heard. Ahmed Abdelgawad, 35, apparently positioned himself on the ground in an aisle at Tesco so he could peer at her underwear. It is alleged that he was touching his groin during the incident, which was caught on CCTV. Witnesses called police and Abdelgawad was arrested as he
sidled up to other unsuspecting women in the shop, the court was told. Abdelgawad, who works at two hospitals in Swansea, South Wales, admitted outraging public decency but denies touching himself. The court will hold another hearing, at a date to be fixed, to decide whether Abdelgawad touched himself at the time of the offence.