For 4th time in a row, US religious freedom panel again recommends India for blacklist

• USCIRF urges sanctions agencies/officials responsible for “severe violations” of religious freedom by freezing their assets
• ‘India should be singled out for discrimination against Muslims and other groups’
• ‘Conditions in the country for minorities ‘continued to worsen” in throughout 2022’

A United States panel on Monday recommended the White House to designate India as a “country of particular concern” (CPC) for engaging in or tolerating systematic violations of religious freedom.

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) recommended that India should be added to a religious freedom blacklist, saying that conditions in the country for religious minorities “continued to worsen” throughout 2022.

It is to be noted that the India had rejected the findings of the commission made in April, calling them biased and inaccurate.

The report, released on 1 May, urged United States President Joe Biden to impose targeted sanctions on Indian government agencies and officials responsible for “severe violations” of religious freedom by freezing their assets or barring their entry into the country. “In 2022, religious freedom conditions in India continued to worsen,” the report said. It also recommended the re-designation of 12 countries as CPCs, including Iran and Pakistan.

Underlining that the US and India have continue to maintain strong bilateral ties, the panel  called on the Biden administration to raise “religious freedom issues in the U.S.-India bilateral relationship and highlight concerns through hearings, briefings, letters, and congressional delegations”.

“President Biden and Prime Minister Narendra Modi interacted on multiple occasions, including the G20 and G7 Summits and the Quad Leaders Summit,” it added, the latter referring to the informal grouping of the US, India, Japan and Australia, reported AlJazeera.

“Throughout the year, the Indian government at the national, state, and local levels promoted and enforced religiously discriminatory policies, including laws targeting religious conversion, interfaith relationships, the wearing of the hijab, and cow slaughter, which negatively impact Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Dalits, and Adivasis.”

The USCIRF’s 2023 annual report noted that the US state department has not designated India, along with Afghanistan, Nigeria or Syria to CPC status “despite USCIRF’s recommendations to do so and its own reporting documenting the nature and extent of the religious freedom violations in those countries”.

The independent panel’s report observed that India’s constitution established the nation as a secular, democratic republic and there are constitutional provisions that grant freedom of religion. “Despite these secular principles, since 2014, the Indian government – led by the BJP – has facilitated and supported national and state-level policies that undermine religious freedom for minority groups,” it said.

The report underscored that the Narendra Modi government continued to “suppress critical voices – particularly religious minorities and those advocating on their behalf – including through surveillance, harassment, demolition of property, and detention under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) and by targeting nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) under the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA)”.

-INDIA NEWS STREAM