WEB DESK / New Delhi
India has rejected the findings of the annual report by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) that include particular criticism of Union Home Minister Amit Shah and the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), saying the panel’s “misrepresentation has reached new levels”.
USCIRF, a bipartisan US commission mandated to monitor religious freedom globally has placed India in a list of 14 nations including Pakistan, China and North Korea for the first time since 2004.
The comment came after the USCIRF recommended India as a “Country of Particular Concern” where “governments engage in or tolerate systematic, ongoing, egregious violations of religious freedom”.
USCIRF on Tuesday recommended the Trump administration should add India to a list of countries seen by the US as systematic and egregious violators and sanction Indian government agencies and officials responsible for it.
The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) cited the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, which fast-tracks Indian citizenship for non-Muslim refugees fleeing persecution, and “nationwide campaigns of harassment and violence against religious minorities” as its reasons.
In its 2020 annual report released Tuesday, the commission recommended that the US government (technically, the state government) should designate India a “Country of Particular Concern” (CPC), for “engaging in and tolerating systematic, ongoing, and egregious religious freedom violations”. India was on the commission’s for Tier 2 list of countries to be watched in 2019.
Accusing the government of creating “a culture of impunity for nationwide campaigns of harassment and violence against religious minorities”, the USCIRF called for “targeted sanctions against Indian government agencies and officials responsible for severe violations of religious freedom”.
“In 2019, following the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) re-election in May, the national government used its strengthened parliamentary majority to institute national level policies violating religious freedom across India, especially for Muslims,” the report said.
“Home Minister Amit Shah referred to migrants as ‘termites’ to be eradicated… in Uttar Pradesh (UP), the BJP chief minister Yogi Adityanath pledged ‘revenge’ against anti-CAA protestors and stated they should be fed ‘bullets not biryani’,” it added.