Sharon Bhagwan-Rolls

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sharon Bhagwan-Rolls is a Fijian political activist of Indian descent. She is the coordinator of the FemLINKPACIFIC, a women's media organization based in the capital of Suva, which she founded in September 2000 in response to the 2000 Fijian coup d'état.

Since November 2000, femlinkpacific and Bhagwan Rolls have been campaigning for the implementation and integration of UN Security Council resolution 1325, titled Women, Peace and Security, in order to ensure women's full participation in the peace and security sector toward ensuring sustainble peace and democracy in Fiji.

Bhagwan Rolls and femLINKPACIFIC have also introduced a mobile women's community radio station (femTALK 89.2fm) in Fiji in 2004, as way to take radio to women in local communities, providing a relevant information and communication platform to increase women's visibility and issues in decision making forums. Earlier, together with co-founder, Peter Sipeli, Bhagwan-Rolls produced a number of community videos. The video "Balancing the Scale" won the Fiji Human Rights Commission television award.

Rolls is known as a strong critic of the military coup which deposed the Qarase government on 5 December 2006, and of human rights violations allegedly committed by soldiers since then.

She has also called on her fellow Indo-Fijians to "follow the footsteps of Mahatma Gandhi" and oppose the coup, saying that Gandhi preached friendship, forgiveness, love, tolerance, and non-violence. “Nothing has been achieved through violence and weapons and I believe that we just lose lives of our loved ones under gun point,” she told the Fiji Sun on 10 December 2006.

Rolls was the principal organizer of the "Blue Ribbon" campaign to restore democracy following the previous coup, in May 2000. Later, she opposed controversial legislation introduced by the Qarase government in 2005 to provide for amnesty for persons convicted of coup-related offences.