Statements of support for the students’ struggle against the  CAA and NRC continue to pour in. We will try and keep publishing as many as we can. In this post is a statement from the University of British Columbia, Canada. 

We, the students, faculty, alumni and scholars of the University of British Columbia, and the South Asian community in Vancouver, strongly condemn the police violence unleashed on students protesting against Citizenship Amendment Act and National Register of Citizens of India, across universities in India. Specifically, we condemn the police brutality on Muslim students of Jamia Millia Islamia and Aligarh Muslim University where the excessive violence of police machinery is reflective of the Islamophobia of the present government. We strongly oppose the recently passed Citizenship Amendment Act which inherently discriminates citizenship for Muslims on religious grounds. The Act provides citizenship to six religious minority communities from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan while it explicitly leaves out Muslims. Citizenship Amendment Act (passed on December 11, 2019) along with National Register of Citizens of India and National Population Register will bring about systematic displacement and dispossession of two hundred million Muslims in India as their citizenship will be put to test and they can be easily rendered stateless.

• We stand with students around India, fighting against this Islamophobic Act. It is the fundamental right of the students to protest in a democracy. Responding to peaceful protest through police brutality and militarization raises questions about the “democratic nature” of the Indian state under the present government.
• We stand witness to the horror of police violence in India – to the firing of live bullets against students, teargas, detention, torture and humiliation of students. We stand witness to those whose bodies have been amputated in this brutality unleashed by the state machinery. As we extend our absolute support to students in India, we also stand witness to the global trends of rise in Islamophobia and construction and consumption of Muslim bodies as particular objects of violence and torture.
• We also stand in solidarity with the protests taking place in North Eastern states in India, specifically Assam. These states, consisting of indigenous populations are facing direct threat to their survival. We recognize the fight of Assamese people against attribution of religion to their Assamese identity. We lend our support to the indigenous voices and strongly condemn the government’s attempt to marginalize and silence the needs and voices of indigenous communities.
• We call upon all secular and anti-fascist organisations to stand in unconditional solidarity with students of JMI, AMU, JNU and other universities in India who reject the obscenity of the Citizenship Amendment Act/National Register of Citizens.