Credits: Pieterjfriedrich.medium

The city of Irving, Texas’s police department in the US welcomed and honoured a local branch of the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS), the international wing of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) on September 21. The meeting however did not go amiss.

Pieter Friedrich, an American journalist and activist in the States who has spoken against Hindutva in the past, attended the city council meeting to explain how and why the police department’s invitation would have unsettled Indian minorities living in the States.

“The police are with us” claimed the storm troopers of the RSS as they stormed out into the streets of Gujarat, India in 2002 to systematically slaughter thousands of Indian Muslims- raping, dismembering, and burning them alive while police either stood by passively watching or actively joined in the carnage,” remarked Friedrich.

The American journalist was discussing the RSS’s role in India and stated that the police were in cahoots with RSS, a Hindu nationalist paramilitary entity whose founders slandered Indian Muslims and Christians as “traitors”. He further stated that the RSS declared their desire to model themselves after the European fascist movements, and in the same vein praised the Nazi treatment of the Jews as an excellent example to emulate.

“How could they have known that police complicity has been central to every major anti-minority pogrom staged by the RSS in India in the past 20 years?” questioned Peter. He stressed that from Gujarat riots in 2002 to Odisha in 2008 (when Christian nuns were gang-raped and paraded naked past laughing police) to Delhi in 2020 (when police broke down doors and handed Muslims over to bloodthirsty mobs), “the police are with us” has been the cry of the RSS.

Friedrich stated that now, as the Irving Police stands, submits to, and honors the HSS, it sends a chilling message to countless local Indian-American Christians,

Dalits, Muslims, Sikhs, and others who know all too well the terror perpetrated by the RSS. “Exactly which of “us” are the Irving Police with — the fascists or their victims? We are — literally — dying to know,” the American journalist remarked.

Friedrich had earlier told Siasat.com that he has been regularly receiving threats on social media by Hindu nationalists.

Fast-unto death against funds to RSS backed NGO

In August, Pieter Friedrich, sat on a hunger strike, in which he began in protest against Twitter chief executive officer Jack Dorsey for donating 2.5 million dollars to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)-linked NGO Sewa International in the USA.

“I am hunger-striking to protest Twitter’s donation to Sewa international USA because the nonprofit springs from the RSS, which has a long track record of extreme anti-minority violence,” Friedrich told this reporter.

The California based journalist said that the global Sewa International family is directly connected to the RSS, and claimed that the RSS has been using international funding to expand RSS’s power in India. Urging people to join him in his hunger strike protest, he said “I have started this journey alone. Many have expressed support, but none have joined my hunger-strike,” Friedrich remarked and added that he will continue as long as he is able to.

Furthermore, he told Siasat.com “I hope to send a message that this is not an issue to be taken lightly.” He added that it’s an issue of life and death for the persecuted minorities of India who are increasingly suffering as the RSS rams through its agenda.

This story first appeared on siasat.com