International Pressure Mounts Against India to Stop the Execution of Davinderpal Singh
Part II: International Efforts
In light of this recent development, an international campaign for justice for Davinderpal Singh launched a series of protests and vigils. The campaign will put pressure on Germany to intervene because weaknesses in the German asylum system left Davinderpal Singh to face the death penalty. A one hundred thousand signature petition was handed over to a member of the Bundestag last year in addition to escalating online petitions and letters.
On January 14, 2003, a small delegation of British Sikhs met Thomas Matussek, the new German Ambassador at his official residence. The Ambassador stated that "the German Government has a good relationship with India and would use this to make its stand very clear to the Indian authorities."
A protest was held later outside the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and attracted much wider publicity with Rob Marris MP joining the protest and giving media interviews along with a number of individuals from the campaign team. Senior officials at the Foreign Office suggested the Foreign Office Minister responsible for India, Mike O'Brien MP would endeavor to meet a delegation of British Sikhs and their elected representatives as soon as Davinderpal Singh's lawyers make a decision on what they will do next.
Sikhs in several EU countries including Germany are already planning similar actions. Several protests are also being planned in Canada and the US, and approaches to the European Parliament and United Nations Human Rights Commissioner in Geneva are underway. An American Sikh media consultant team was hired and has spoken on various TV and radio talk shows in Canada. Plans are underway to approach the former Governer of Illinois, US and to meet Joshka Fischer of the foreign minister of Germany. A strategy with cooperation from Human Rights Watch is also under consideration.
In a study titled "INDIA: Break the cycle of impunity and torture in Punjab," release by Amnesty International on January 20, AI stated that "a coalition of the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) party and the Hindu nationalist party, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), won state elections in 1997. The new administration, headed by Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal, promised the release of detainees charged with offences under the lapsed Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA). Few of these promises materialized during the SAD-BJP tenure."
AI cited Davinderpal Singh as one of the victims of these broken promises and gives the following explanation for the SC's misguided decision to sentence him to death: "In August 2001 a designated TADA court passed the death sentence on him. In December 2001 an appeal against the death sentence was made to the Supreme Court. While the court was making its decision armed militants perpetrated an attack on the Lokh Sabha (the Indian parliament) on 13th December 2001 and observers believe that heightened rhetoric about the threat of "terrorism" in the country and a hardening of government policies may have influenced the decision. The appeal was rejected by a three judge bench; two judges believed the death penalty should be upheld but, unusually, the other ruled that the accused was innocent. A petition questioning the controversial appeal decision was upheld by a three judge bench of the Supreme Court in mid December 2002."
Davinderpal Singh's days are numbered.
On January 17, 2003, The Indian Express reported that Tihar Prison received its first Black Warrant in fifteen years for the execution of Davinderpal Singh.
In mid January, Davinder Singh's attorneys sent a mercy petition to President Abdul Kalam asking him to "commute the death sentence upon the petitioner into a sentence for life imprisonment." The lengthy petition details the flaws in the case and cites other more severe cases which were granted clemency. The petition states "the principle that even one dissenting view, on even the quantum of sentences, is good reason not to impose the extreme penalty of death. The reason is obvious. The categorization "rarest of rare" would be severely challenged if even one judicial authority were in doubt about the appropriateness of death in a particular case. How much stronger, this argument becomes, when the dissent of a judicial authority is not merely on the question of sentence but on guilt itself."
The New York based human rights group Voices For Freedom stated in a press release that a well-known Indian attorney, Ram Jethmalani, has also filed a petition to retry the case with a panel consisting of a higher number of justices.
If both petitions are rejected, Davinderpal Singh will be hung within a week, claim officials at the Tihar Jail.
VFF also stated that Davinderpal Singh's attorneys have traveled to Germany to ask officials there to put pressure on the Indian government to reduce Singh's sentence to life imprisonment.
On January 22, 2003 a letter went sent to the President of India from the German Parliament stating: "Your Excellency, I am writing to you behalf of the Committee on Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid of the German Bundestag on a matter of extreme urgency, which is causing great concern in Germany. In 1995, the Indian citizen Davinderpal Singh Bhullar, a Sikh who had applied for political asylum in Germany, was deported from Germany to India. This deportation, as was subsequently recognised and confirmed by court ruling, should never have taken place, since the German authority carrying out the deportation had committed grave procedural errors. …We urgently appeal to you to make use of your power to grant a pardon, so that Davinderpal Singh's death sentence is not enforced."
On January 23, 2003 and urgent action was issued by Amnesty International urging the public to send appeals to the President and to the Attorney General of India to immediately commutes the death sentence imposed on Davinderpal Singh; pointing out the controversial nature of the two decisions made by the Supreme Court; expressing unconditional opposition to the death penalty as a violation of the right to life and the right not to be subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and emphasizing that the death penalty has never been shown to have a special deterrent effect; reminding the President of the United Nations (UN) Commission on Human Rights resolution of April 1999 that governments should establish a moratorium on executions.