wfn.org | WCC to denounce increasing violence against Dalits in India

["WCC Media" <Media@wcc-coe.org>]

World Council of Churches
Update 03-13
For Immediate Use
27 March 2003

WCC to denounce increasing violence against Dalits in India

Cf  Press Release PR-03-13, 19 March 2003
The increasing violence against Dalits in India is being denounced by the
World Council of Churches (WCC) at the current (59th) session of the United
Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR). 

"The violence against Dalits is on the increase," states a written submission
by the WCC Commission of Churches on International Affairs (CCIA). "They are
not only segregated in all spheres of social life - places of worship,
education, housing and land ownership, use of common wells and roads - but
also subjected to arbitrary executions," the submission explains.  

The WCC has long been committed to the cause of Dalit liberation. According
to the WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Konrad Raiser,  "The WCC has been
accompanying this process for the past 20 years."

"While we continue to be in solidarity with the churches in India as they
seek to witness to the liberating power of God in an increasingly complex and
hostile environment," Raiser adds, "we encourage them to not limit themselves
to Dalit liberation within their own community, but also to join the wider
movement committed to the liberation of Dalits." 

Recalling the WCC conviction that "Christian participation in the struggle
for liberation is an inevitable task for the churches," Raiser notes that "We
now find ourselves confronted with new forms of oppression as a consequence
of economic and financial globalization combined with hegemonic ambitions on
the political and military levels." These new patterns, he says, call
churches to go beyond acts of liberation and strive for justice that
transforms all structures and relationships. "Transformative justice
overcomes all forms of discrimination and oppression and enables healing and
reconciliation," Raiser says.

The WCC's written submission to the UN Human Rights Commission comes in the
context of continued deep concern about the Dalit issue within UN debates on
racism, xenophobia and other forms of discrimination. The submission also
lifts up the plight of religious minorities in India, Pakistan and Indonesia.

For further information, please contact the Media Relations Office, tel: +41
(0)22 791 64 21 / 61 53

**********
The World Council of Churches (WCC) is a fellowship of churches, now 342, in
more than 100 countries in all continents from virtually all Christian
traditions. The Roman Catholic Church is not a member church but works
cooperatively with the WCC. The highest governing body is the assembly, which
meets approximately every seven years. The WCC was formally inaugurated in
1948 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Its staff is headed by general secretary
Konrad Raiser from the Evangelical Church in Germany.

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