The World Sindhi Institute
November 19, 2003
Receive Bi-Partisan,
National Support
Washington, DC. As the 12noon deadline arrived today, and as
international headlines announced forward progress in the dialogue
between Pakistan and India, the World Sindhi Institute (WSI) celebrated
its own great success in the United States Congress. Throughout the
past four weeks, two letters pertaining to the Sindh province of
Pakistan have been circulated throughout the Congressional House offices
while, simultaneously, WSI staff and supporters have been meeting with
House staffers to encourage Representatives to sign on to the letters.
With great appreciation to the many participating friends and colleagues
both in and out of Congress, including members of US-based Sindhi
organizations SANA and WSC, WSI announced that the following Members of
Congress have joined sponsoring Congressman Tom Tancredo (CO-R)
in signing the letters:
Congressman Joseph Crowley (NY-D)
Congressman James Greenwood (PA-R)
Congressman Jay Inslee (WA-D)
Congressman Steve Israel (NY-D)
Congressman Tom Lantos (CA-D; Co-Chair, Human Rights Caucus)
Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee (TX-D)
Congressman Jim McDermott (WA-D)
Congressman Kendrick Meek (FL-D)
Congressman Donald Payne (NJ-D)
Congressman John Tierney (MA-D)
“This is a great accomplishment!” proclaimed WSI Executive Director,
Mr. Munawar Laghari. “We congratulate and thank the ten representatives
and their staff for joining Mr. Tancredo in raising a voice for the
oppressed Sindhis of Sindh, Pakistan. And we feel forever indebted to
and impressed with Congressman Tancredo and his staff.” WSI expresses
great gratitude to all those who met with WSI this month, even if their
offices were not yet able to sign on to the letters. “So many people
gave us their time and care, and genuinely made an effort to learn more
about Sindh,” explained WSI Director of Advocacy & Public Relations, Ms.
Emma Reinhardt. “We are very appreciative – and very hopeful that future
work will continue to bring more and more offices across the country
together in support of Sindh.”
WSI was founded in March 1997 in order to advocate from Washington, DC
for the rights of the Sindhis of the Sindh province in southeast
Pakistan. Though WSI has received support in the form of letters from
Representatives including the late Senator Paul Wellstone and a Briefing
sponsored by Congressman Tom Lantos previously, this accomplishment
marks its first true step into the US Congressional system. “Today we
have ten co-signers, and many new friends and contacts. This is an
essential starting point, and I feel we should all be very proud,”
remarked Laghari. “Eleven Members signed on to the letters, and my
colleagues and I had an opportunity to meet with an additional thirty
offices over these few weeks. On top of that, all remaining House
offices received letters about Sindh. Our work begins with
awareness-building – therefore, our work has truly begun!”
The two letters, PROTECT THE SINDH PROVINCE, and COUNTER FUNDAMENTALIST
PROGRAMMING (below) will be sent this week to President General
Musharraf and the Chairman of the Board of Voice of America (VOA),
respectively. The first letter requests that Musharraf agree to
dialogue with the House Members about the Sindhis’ human rights; the
second asks that VOA launches a program in the Sindhi language.
“We would like not to be ignored,” said Laghari. “It is time Musharraf
listens to our cries and is held accountable for the rights of the
Sindhis. And it is high time that the Sindhis be included in the global
conversation through an international radio program they can
understand. We are hopeful that these letters will inspire positive
change.”
To view the
original letter, please
click here.
For more information, please see
Through nonviolent
means,
The World Sindhi
Institute works relentlessly
for universal human rights and humanitarian law for the
Sindhis of Sindh, in southeastern Pakistan.
Press Release
PROTECT THE SINDH PROVINCE
Dear President Musharraf:
We write to you from the U.S. House of Representatives regarding a concern brought to the attention of Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali during his most recent visit to Washington, DC, regarding the Sindh Province of Pakistan. There is a very active community of Sindhis in the United States who have communicated their grave concerns to us about the treatment of their people in Pakistan.
Of greatest and deepest distress for the Sindhis are the Indus River constructions. The most recent plans for the building of the Thal Canal and Kalabagh Dam threaten the environmental security and the cultural and economic stability of the Sindh province. Already suffering from poverty and extreme drought, the Sindhi community would be greatly challenged if the river constructions continue.
It appears to us that the Pakistani government is ignoring the Sindhis’ opposition to the river constructions, expressed through the Sindh Assembly’s unanimous vote against them, as well as in daily street protests in Sindh. The government’s reluctance to address these concerns further marginalizes the Sindhis living in Pakistan.
More than 50% of the people living in the provinces of Sindh and Balochistan are living under the poverty level. The recent report released by the Asian Development Bank asserts that the poverty rates in both Sindh and Balochistan are twice as high as the poverty rates in the other provinces of Pakistan. Such an economic imbalance threatens the integrity of Pakistan. We hope that you will do everything in your power to work quickly to restore the Sindhis’ confidence in the central government.
Finally, we wish to address the situation concerning human rights activist Kirshan Sharma who was arrested by Pakistan's Federal Investigation Unit on March 21, 2003. We were grateful and relieved to learn that Mr. Sharma was released from detention on November 12, 2003. However, the Sindhi community believes that Mr. Sharma was unfairly arrested, and was imprisoned without due process. We are concerned about his ongoing welfare, and the Sindhi community views Mr. Sharma's treatment as illustrative of their own ongoing persecution by the federal government.
We ask that you agree to join us in a dialogue addressing these and other issues brought to our attention by the Sindhi community in the United States.
COUNTER FUNDAMENTALIST PROGRAMMING!
Dear Mr. Chairman:
We write to you regarding the Sindh province of Pakistan. The majority of Sindhis in this province are Sufis, spiritually devoted to nonviolence, equality, and a democratic system of governance. There is a large community of very active and concerned Sindhis here in the United States that has brought to our attention many of their grievances in the province, as well as to Sindh’s cultural wealth and possible role in helping the U.S. secure a more stable South Asia.
Through the issues brought to our attention, it became evident that the Sindhis of the Sindh province need and deserve accessible, impartial, international and local radio programs. Currently, the only news from the U.S. that reaches the predominantly rural Sindhis, who do not speak Punjabi, Urdu or English, are fundamentalist programs aimed at increasing the Sindhis’ feeling of vulnerability, thus alluring them to participate in activities and submit to beliefs that can only further destabilize and un-democratize the region, including enrolling their children in madrassas. We have discussed with the local Sindhis here in Washington the possibility of creating a Voice of America (VOA) program in the Sindhi language. A VOA program broadcasted in Sindhi would be useful in providing information bred from a truly democratic system to the otherwise isolated community, and in encouraging the Sindhis to regard themselves as an important and relevant community in Pakistan, and an integral part of the global war against terrorism. In addition, through a U.S.-sponsored program like the VOA, U.S.-based Sindhi staff would have the opportunity to act as emissaries of democracy, peace and non-violence to their native community.
The Voice of America currently broadcasts in fifty-five languages, and reaches people with more than 1,000 hours of weekly programming. In the last year, the VOA has developed exclusive 24-hour FM outlets in capital cities throughout the U.S.’s target regions where affiliates were not previously in place, including Nairobi, Kigali, Brazzaville, Ulaanbaatar, and Amman. It is our request that you consider launching a Sindhi program in this coming year, with an outlet in Karachi for broadcasting throughout the province of Sindh.
As Members of the House of Representatives, we ask that you consider creating a VOA program in Sindhi in an effort to support and foster communities that already endorse democracy and democratic ideals in volatile areas of the world
