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A planned seminar and press conference in New Delhi featuring an Awami League leader and a Rohingya rights activist was cancelled after organisers said they were denied police permission.
The Foreign Correspondents Club of South Asia (FCC) said the event, scheduled for Saturday (August 29), could not be held because Delhi Police did not grant permission. Police, however, denied intervening to stop the programme.
Titled “Europe and Asia: From Dialogue to a Partnership”, the event was planned as a seminar-cum-press conference jointly organised by the FCC and Belgium-based Hand in Hand Foundation.
A 10-member panel was scheduled to take part in the programme. The panellists included Czech politician Ondřej Dostál, German diplomat Peter Fahrenholz, Bangladesh-born American scientist Nurun Nabi, Bangladeshi lawyer and Awami League leader Salim Mahmud, Nepali child rights activist Sundar Ghimire, Rohingya rights activist Ravi Alam, FCC-IAPC Chairman Venkat Narayan, former diplomat Veena Sikri, United Diplomatic Council President Asif Iqbal and Hand in Hand Foundation Secretary General Golam Jilani.
An FCC member told *ThePrint* that, as part of the regular procedure, a member of the club’s management team went to Tilak Marg police station on Friday evening to seek permission for the event and request police deployment for security.
The organisers subsequently provided police officials with details of the programme. They were later informed that Delhi Police would not grant permission for the event.
The FCC then issued a notice to its members announcing the cancellation. It said the “Europe and Asia” event scheduled for the evening of August 29 would not take place because permission had not been granted by Delhi Police, adding that the situation had arisen unexpectedly and was beyond the organisers’ control.
FCC President Wael Awwad told ThePrint that the event was intended to discuss partnership and development and was essentially an intellectual discussion. He said, however, that he was not certain why Delhi Police had refused permission.
Delhi Police’s Deputy Commissioner for New Delhi district, Sachin Sharma, denied that police had intervened in the event.
He said the FCC did not require police permission to organise such a panel discussion and that police had not interfered with any of its programmes.
However, a document obtained by ThePrint stated that “no permission” was being granted for the event. The document, bearing the seal of Tilak Marg police station, reportedly cited some controversies as the reason for not approving the programme.
A letter sent by the FCC to police also contained details of the planned event. According to the letter, an FCC assistant manager said a seminar-cum-press conference would be held at the club from 6pm to 8pm on August 29.
The letter also requested the deployment of an adequate number of police personnel to prevent any untoward incident during the programme.
Police subsequently informed the organisers that permission would not be granted, prompting the FCC to cancel the event.
Meanwhile, an FCC source told ThePrint that the situation had emerged following former Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s press conference at the same club on August 5. At that press conference, Hasina said she planned to return to Bangladesh in December.
According to the source, the Bangladesh government had criticised the Indian government for allowing Hasina to hold the press conference in Delhi. The source speculated that the presence of a prominent Awami League leader and another intellectual known for working on the Rohingya issue on the proposed panel may have contributed to the decision not to allow the event.
However, Delhi Police has not officially linked the cancellation to Hasina’s press conference, the presence of the Awami League leader or the participation of the Rohingya rights activist.
While police have denied intervening to stop the programme, the document obtained by ThePrint clearly states that permission for the event was not granted, citing “some controversies” as the reason.