When Suranya demonstrated in DelhiAnother event in India in connection with the Czech case:
Shortly after the letters to the Czech and the Norwegian embassies in New Delhi were sent and Suranya Aiyar was invited to the celebration at the Czech embassy, the Norwegian Foreign Minister was to visit New Delhi. An energetic Mrs Aiyar followed up by a very imaginative and courageous
demonstration. The letters had been signed by a group, but this time she chose to demonstrate single-handed.
Suranya has told us how her day went:
On the day that the Norwegian Foreign Minister Børge Brende was visiting India, she fitted out her car with large posters or banners against the Norwegian child protection system (photos will follow). She drove around Delhi showing them, then parked her car close to the Norwegian embassy, where there was to be a lunch reception in honour of the Foreign Minister.
Guests coming to the reception could see the car, and so could the embassy staff. Complaints were made by the embassy to the police about the banners on her car and in a while the police arrived and asked her kindly to go away. Right – she drove off, but after driving around some blocks she returned.
While this was going on she posted on facebook, and had some 130 followers, mostly Scandinavians and Czechs (remember she sent her letters to the two embassies and to Czech media previously and got quite a few contacts in Czechia), cheering her and sharing the photos, and joining in the criticism of the child protection services.
When she kept coming back, the police, after having given her three warnings to take herself off, brought her to the police station.
The police, after asking to be explained what she was demonstrating about, offered to escort her to the embassy to deliver her memorandum. So they all went back to the embassy, where a memorandum was handed over.
Altogether Suranya had been able to demonstrate for about four hours around Delhi and at the Norwegian embassy. At the end of the day there were over 150 people on facebook cheering and congratulating the effort, mostly Scandinavians.
She sent out a press release:
***
PRESS RELEASE 2 November 2015
Protesting against visiting Norwegian Foreign Minister Borge Brende, an activist, Suranya Aiyar, is driving around Delhi with the slogan “Norway Steals Children!” “Boycott Norway!”. Attached are photos [on facebook].
Under Norwegian laws child protection authorities can permanently remove children from parents, even of foreign nationals on holiday or short term work assignments there.
Aiyar, who has been campaigning against this form of child protection for some years, says that children are removed on frivolous and, often, racist grounds from innocent parents. Of particular concern to her and her supporters is the refusal of Norway to return such children even to extended family in their home countries.
In a case that occurred a few years ago with a Bengali family in Norway, the children were returned only after high level intervention by the Indian [authorities] and recently in a similar case of a Czech family, the Norwegian authorities have, so far, refused to repatriate such children to their extended family in Czechia and instead placed them for forced adoption to Norwegians. Norway has come under criticism from several countries for unjustifiably removing children from their parents.***
The press release was quickly picked up and commented on on the website of Sirf News:
Activist protests Norwegian ‘child snatching’ practiceSirf News, 2 November 2015
Along with the supporting Scandinavians on facebook, the story was also picked up by a Brazilian group protesting the case of a Brazilian mother who took refuge in the Brazilian embassy in Oslo (cf
Brazil's Embassy helps mother and child against abuse from the child protection services and
Children confiscated from parents in Norway and Sweden).
We really must pay tribute to Suranya's resourcefullness and good courage to stand up for children's and their families' rights.