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Pablo Khan, from Mumbai, India, says his brother and sister were detained by police in New Delhi while protesting Saturday against alleged electoral manipulation in the country.<\/p>\n
One day later, Khan was among a group of about 50 people gathered in downtown Vancouver in solidarity with those protesting in India \u2014 and to demonstrate their right to peacefully protest after mass detentions in New Delhi.<\/p>\n
“They were picked up off the road while chatting with reporters like I\u2019m doing right now and thrown into a bus,” Khan said.<\/p>\n
He said they were later released, “but [were] still followed by the police all the way home.”<\/p>\n
The Vancouver demonstration comes after about 2,400 people were detained by Delhi Police on Saturday, according to a police spokesperson who spoke to Reuters. Most were released the same night.<\/p>\n
Hundreds more demonstrators were reportedly detained Sunday as protests continued in New Delhi.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Why are there protests?<\/p>\n
Protesters in India have been calling for the removal of the country\u2019s chief election commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar, after a nationwide review of voter lists resulted in about 130-million names being deleted from electoral rolls.<\/p>\n
Khan said he showed up in Vancouver Sunday to “stand up for democracy.”<\/p>\n
He described New Delhi as being turned into a fortress, packed with thousands of police officers who are “randomly picking people off the streets and throwing them into detention centres.”<\/p>\n
Organizers in Vancouver say that as the protest broke out in India\u2019s capital, there were thousands of police personnel, transit was shut down and internet was suspended in parts of the city \u2014 and people are scared.<\/p>\n
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Zahara Czar, demonstration organizer, says “the world is watching” and hopes Canada will condemn actions of the Indian government. (Arden McLeod\/CBC)<\/p>\n
“Protesters were being harassed. [They] were being snatched by their hair,” said Zahara Czar, a co-organizer of Sunday\u2019s demonstration in Vancouver.<\/p>\n
According to reporting by Reuters, India\u2019s Election Commission has denied allegations of manipulation, attributing the removal<\/a> of millions of names to voters who had relocated, could not be traced or had died.<\/p>\n The commission says the process is intended to remove ineligible registrations and that eligible voters who were wrongly removed can re-register.<\/p>\n But opposition parties allege that the commission removed legitimate voters to benefit Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in state elections, allegations both the commission and BJP deny.\u00a0<\/p>\n Human rights concerns<\/p>\n