Three Noble laureates demand Gates Foundation to withdraw its award for Modi
- By Web Desk -
- Sep 14, 2019
Three Nobel Prize laureates have demanded Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to withdraw its award to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in view of his blatant human rights violations in occupied Kashmir, attacks on minorities in India.
In their joint letter addressed to the foundation, Mairead Maguire, Tawakkol Abdel-Salam Karman, and Shirin Ebadi expressed their serious reservations and wrote that under Prime Minister Modi’s leadership, India has descended into dangerous and deadly chaos that has consistently undermined human rights and democracy.
“This is particularly troubling to us as the stated mission of your foundation is to preserve life and fight inequity,” they added.
The situation in the state of Assam and occupied Jammu and Kashmir is cause for grave concern as well.
“The organization ‘Genocide Watch’ has issued not one, but two alerts for India in these regions.
In Assam, 1.9 million Indians have been stripped of citizenship; in Kashmir, since August, 800,000 Indian armed forces have kept eight million Kashmiris without phone or internet service for the last month,” the letter continued.
The Noble laureates also referred to the assaults on minorities, specifically Indian Muslims, Christians, and Dalits.
They requested Gates Foundation to rescind its award to Modi because by doing so, they would send a clear and powerful message that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation took its aim of equity, justice, and human rights for all seriously.