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NOTE: A few links are not working as we failed to transfer the information from our old site foundation for pluralism to the new Center for Pluralism. We are working on it and hope to restore the links to pictures and videos soon.


Wednesday, December 18, 2019

15th Annual Holocaust and Genocides

PRESS RELEASE

Dr. Mike Ghouse
Center for Pluralism
Website: www.CenterforPluralism.com
Website: www.HolocaustandGenocides.com
email: MikeGhouse@gmail.com 
Office: (202) 290-3560
Cell: (214) 325-1916

15th Annual Reflections on the Holocaust and Genocides  

The purpose of this event is education, information, and activism. We hope to learn and acknowledge our failings and make a personal commitment to our share of saying, "Never Again."


15th Annual Reflections on Holocaust and Genocides
5:30 PM - 8:30 PM Sunday, January 26, 2020
Arlington Central Library, 1015 N. Quincy Street
Arlington, VA 22201

Tickets are complimentary, but donations are accepted 

We hope you will walk out of the event with a genuine feeling of being a contributor towards building a cohesive world where no human has to live in apprehension or fear of the other. 

The Jewish community has been commemorating the Holocaust event since 1953, known as Yom HaShoah in Synagogues around the world. The general public learns it by visiting the Holocaust Museums and educational institutions.

At the Center for Pluralism, we are committed to spreading knowledge of the Holocaust and Genocide through interfaith and public events, including the Annual reflections. 


Speakers: 

Robert F. Teitel - Holocaust Story

Dr. Gregory Stanton - Signs of Genocides
Rushan Abbas & Omer Kanat - Uyghur Updates
Dr. Wakar Uddin - Rohingya Update
Muneer Baig - Kashmir Update
Dr. TO Shanavas - India Update
Dr. Rani Khan - Peace Pledge
Dr. Mike Ghouse - Genesis of this event
Rabia Baig - MC

Volunteers:


Nausheen Baig
Rabbi Alana Suskin
Jafer Imam
Dr. Zafar Iqbal
Charles Stevenson


Sponsors:


Would you like to be a sponsor?
Our budget is $2000, full or any part 


Co-Chairs:

Dr. Rani Khan
Dr. Mike Ghouse


Organized by:

Center for Pluralism

Special Note for Indians: In the last 14 years, we have covered nearly 30 genocides and difficult events such as the Sikh Genocide, Plight of Kashmiri Pundits, Gujarat Massacre, Bangladesh Genocide among other events in the world. These are not against anyone but highlighting the human suffering inflicted by fellow humans.  

Our format consists of four parts; Interfaith prayers, Holocaust, Genocides, Massacred and the Pledge of Peace. Silently, we will acknowledge all suffering, but physically we are limited to a few Genocides each year. 

 This year, a Holocaust survivor will share his story, followed by updated Uyghur, Rohingya, and the signs of making of Genocide in India. I urge everyone to watch the Schindler's list and Civil War movies to grasp the signs.

I believe, when we acknowledge each other's grief and participate in each other's commemoration, we connect with the humanness within ourselves and seed the relationship of understanding and caring for each other. 

There is a shameless cruelty in us, either we shy away or refuse to acknowledge the sufferings of others, worrying that it will devalue our own, or amounts to infidelity to our pain, and every community and nation has suffered through this. To all those who have endured the Holocaust, Genocides, Massacres, Ethnic Cleansing, Land Mines, Hunger, Rape, Torture, Occupation, Expulsion, and inhuman brutality, we must say, you are not alone. The least we can do in the process of healing is to acknowledge every one's pain in one voice. 

 

I cannot be safe if the people around me are not, and I will not have peace if people around me don't. It is in my interest to seek a peaceful world for one and all.

This is a Muslim initiative to assure fellow humans who have endured the Holocaust, Genocide, ethnic cleansing, massacres, rapes, injustice and other atrocities that we are all in this together to create a better world. Tikkun Olam is our sacred duty. 

 

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List of Supporting Organizations (links embedded)

Send email to HolocaustandGenocides20@gmail.com
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Published at 148 News Outlets
A few are listed below 


Tuesday, December 17, 2019

India - Genocide in Making

Preparation for genocide underway in India: Dr. Gregory Stanton


An internationally acclaimed expert raises concerns about the possible mass extermination of Muslims while briefing US Congress on the situation in Kashmir and Assam.

Dr. Gregory Stanton, founder of Genocide Watch
Dr. Gregory Stanton, the founder of Genocide Watch, addressed an audience of Congressional and Government officials at a briefing titled Ground Reports on Kashmir and NRC in Washington D.C on December 12 where he said, “Preparation for a genocide is definitely under way in India. He said that persecution of Muslims in Assam and Kashmir “is the stage just before genocide, adding, “The next stage is extermination — that’s what we call a genocide.”
Dr. Stanton created the world-famous “Ten Stages of Genocide” as a presentation to the U.S. Department of State when he worked there in 1996. According to Dr. Stanton, the ten stages of genocide are as follows:
  • The first stage was “classification” of “us versus them”.
  • The second stage, “symbolization”, named the victims as “foreigner”.
  • The third stage, “discrimination”, “classified [the victims] out of the group accepted for citizenship” so that they had no “human rights or civil rights of citizens” and were “discriminated against legally”.
  • The fourth stage, dehumanization, “is when the genocidal spiral begins to go downwards. You classify the others as somehow worse than you. You give them names like ‘terrorists’, or even names of animals, start referring to them as a cancer in the body politic, you talk about them as a disease that must be somehow dealt with.”
  • The fifth stage was creating an “organization” to commit the genocide: the role played by the “Indian army in Kashmir and the census takers in Assam”.
  • The sixth stage was “polarization”, which is achieved by propaganda.
  • The seventh stage was “preparation”
  •  The eighth “persecution”, where Assam and Kashmir currently were.
  • The ninth stage is “extermination” and;
  • The tenth stage is “denial”.
Dr. Stanton also drafted UN Security Council resolutions that created the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda and the Burundi Commission of Inquiry, two places where genocides had occurred. A former President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, his research on genocides in Cambodia and Rwanda, and of the Rohingyas, is recognized worldwide.
CJP secretary and Human Rights Defender Teesta Setalvad also addressed the audience via video conferencing and said that the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam was “being used to subvert human rights in Assam. There are laid down guidelines and standard operating procedures to carry out this exercise but none of it is being followed. We have to ask if this exercise is being carried out within the ambit of the constitution.”
Setalvad also criticised the Citizenship Amendment Act saying it would “bring untold suffering to people across the country. It will damage, fundamentally and irreparably, the nature of the Indian republic. This is why they, and all citizens of conscience, demand that the government not betray the constitution.
Also participating in the Briefing via video link, Dr. Angana Chatterji, a scholar with UC Berkeley, slammed the crackdown in Kashmir since the Indian government revoked the Constitutionally mandated special status of Jammu and Kashmir on August 5. She shared that reports have documented the “inhumane treatment and torture of children, the elderly, and women; illegal detentions, including mass detentions; the denial of the basic needs of life, the curtailment of freedom of speech and movement, the falsification of social facts and their amplification by the state, and the closure of sacred places,” she said. “Cries of pain” of a torture victim were broadcast via a mosque’s speaker system. “State forces have raided homes, destroyed property and mixed food with kerosene, said Dr. Chatterji.
Raqib Hameed Naik, a journalist from Jammu and Kashmir said the ongoing lock-down in Kashmir was “one of the worst sieges in the last decade… Officially there are no restrictions, but unofficially the government has imposed an undeclared emergency.” Naik also disputed the Indian government’s claim that Indian troops had not killed any Kashmiris since August 5 when the state’s special status was withdrawn.
“Let me put it on record that, so far, we have been able to document five killings by security forces. The number could be higher, but due to communication blockade and severe restrictions on the movement of the press, we have not been able to get exact figures from the different parts of the valley.” Naik said he had met with “many minors” who were imprisoned “without charges”. 
The Congressional briefing was organized by three U.S.-based civil society organizations, namely, the Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC), Emgage Action, and Hindus for Human Rights (HfHR).