Working people and all supporters of democratic rights should oppose the campaign against "Sikh terrorism" being whipped up by Canada’s rulers around the arrest of two Sikh men allegedly responsible for the bombing of an Air India plane in 1985. They should be released now.

While not a shred of evidence has been produced against them, the rulers want us to accept the claim that they’re guilty unless they can "prove their innocence." The prosecution will use the vague "conspiracy" charges to try to convict individuals simply on the basis of conversations they supposedly had, not actions.

Canada’s capitalist rulers’ campaign against "terrorism" has targeted not only Sikhs but Arab and Muslim immigrants. Many have been systematically spied on, "visited," and interrogated by Canada’s political police agencies--the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Almost none of these immigrants have ever been charged with any criminal act. They’re treated as "suspects" simply on the basis of their nationality, religion, or political beliefs.

This chauvinist campaign is aimed at scapegoating immigrants and oppressed nationalities in order to deepen divisions in the working class. It led to the 1998 murder of Nirmal Singh Gill, a Sikh caretaker, in Surrey by five racist skinheads.

It is also seen in the arrest and deportation of Chinese immigrants whose only "crime" is to seek to live and work in Canada.

The "law and order" campaign of the bosses’ parties in the federal elections is part and parcel of the efforts of the billionaire capitalist families to increase the use of police powers against working people at home. In recent weeks the police and the courts have been used against Mi’kmaq fishermen in New Brunswick, striking workers at Superior Poultry in British Columbia, and meat packers at Maple Leaf’s Hub plant in Moncton, New Brunswick. These assaults at home go hand in hand with the Canadian rulers’ foreign policy, such as their support to the Israeli regime’s repression against Palestinians fighting for their self-determination.

Stop the "antiterrorist" witch-hunt against Sikhs, Arabs, and Muslims!

Free the jailed Chinese immigrants! Stop the deportations!
 
 
Related article:
Canada ‘antiterror’ drive targets rights  
 
 
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