International

Canada: The human rights plea

Paralysed Sikh refugee has declined to obey the order of his deportation to India and sought asylum in a gurdwara in Canada saying it was cruel to send a disabled man back to his country where the level of care is uncertain.

Laibar Singh, 48, left disabled from an aneurysm, has dodged the deportation order by moving into a Sikh temple in the Fraser Valley city of Abbotsford in British Columbia over the weekend.

Wheelchair bound Singh, who needs regular dialysis treatment, was to have been deported to India from Vancouver on a jet chartered by the Canadian authorities to accommodate his health needs.

Instead, Singh will stay at the gurdwara indefinitely, said Harpal Singh Nagra, a spokesman for a British Columbia-based South Asian human rights group. “He’s not ever going to leave,” Nagra said.” He said he wants to die there.”

Singh has been trying obtain legal status in Canada since 2003 when he entered the country in Toronto using a false passport. The widowed father of four made a refugee claim, says he would face torture by the Punjab Police if he were returned to India because he’s been falsely linked to a Khalistan group. Singh’s case has been championed by some members of British Colombia’s Sikh community, who said it was cruel to deport a disabled man to India, where the level of care is uncertain.

A human rights group for the disabled also backed Singh’s bid to stay in Canada, saying a man in his conditions should not be sent to India.

Until his move to the temple, Singh was at a Vancouver long-term care home, which costed about $ 400 a daily. Prior to that, he was at Vancouver General Hospital for five months. Nagra said Singh’s health-care costs had been paid by taxpayers, although his supporters have pledged to cover his health-care while in the temple. Nagra said the community had arranged for medical staff to treat him inside the temple.

Faith St. John, a spokeswoman for the Canadian Border Services Agency, said staff was not permitted to discuss individual cases. However, she said Ottawa did not condone hiding in a place of worship as a means of evading deportation.

Source: Disabled Sikh dodges Canada deportation order. Indian Express, Daily, New Delhi 10 July 2007.