Members of the Punjabi Press Club of British Columbia (PPCBC) came out to hold a rally against growing repression of journalists in India on Tuesday, May 3.
Held at Holland Park in Surrey on the occasion of World Press Freedom Day, the rally was attended by Mayor Dough McCallum and City Councillor Mandeep Nagra, besides BC Federation of Labour Secretary-Treasurer Sussanne Skidmore. The three all addressed the gathering and strongly condemned the attack on press freedom.
Special messages of solidarity with the media from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and MPs Sukh Dhaliwal and Parm Bains, were also read out by the organizers.
The event started with the Canadian national anthem and a moment of silence for journalists who laid down their lives in the line of their duty globally.
The speakers were unanimous in their demand for the release of jailed journalists in India, and halting physical and mental harassment of media persons by the people in power and their supporters.
They agreed that female journalists remain more vulnerable under a right wing government in New Delhi.
Slogans in support of press freedom were also raised by the participants.
Those who spoke on the occasion were PPCBC President Baljinder Kaur, the group’s former Presidents Gurvinder Singh Dhaliwal and Jarnail Singh Artist, the cofounder of the club, Gurpreet Singh Sahota, the secretary Khuspal Gill, and veteran member Kuldeep Singh. Gurpreet Singh, the publisher of Radical Desi, an online magazine, also said a few words.
