US report on religious freedom lists protests against CAA, Article 370
Indian Express
Dated: June 12, 2020
By: Shubhajit Roy
In its ‘International Religious Freedom Report’ for 2019, the United States administration has given a
detailed account of the protests and criticism against the Indian government’s
decisions on the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and Article 370.
The report,
released by US Secretary of State Michael R Pompeo on Thursday, also talks
about “religiously inspired mob violence, lynching and communal violence”, and
says that “some officials of Hindu-majority parties, including from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP),
made inflammatory public remarks or social media posts against minority
communities”.
Calling it an
“internal report” of the US government, the Indian government said Washington
has “no locus standi” to comment on the issue.
Responding to questions on the report, the Ministry of External Affairs’
official spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said, “The report is published annually
by the US State Department as part of the legal requirement to the US Congress.
It is an internal document of the US government. India’s vibrant democratic
traditions and practices are evident to the world. The people and the
Government of India are proud of our country’s democratic traditions. We have a
robust public discourse. And we have constitutionally mandated institutions
that guarantee protection of religious freedom and rule of law. Therefore, our
principal position remains that we see no local standi for a foreign entity to
pronounce on the state of our citizens’ constitutionally protected rights.”
The annual
report, submitted by the US Department of State to the US Congress on
International Religious Freedom, talks about the status of religious freedom in
every country. “In December, (Indian) Parliament passed the Citizenship
Amendment Act (CAA), which accelerates citizenship for Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain,
Parsi, and Christian migrants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan who
entered the country on or before December 31, 2014, but not for
similarly-situated migrants who are Muslims, Jews, atheists, or members of
other faiths,” says the 27-page report.
“The law generated widespread media and
religious minority criticism, including legal challenges in the Supreme Court.
Protests and violent clashes between protesters and security forces in Uttar
Pradesh and Assam following the passage of the law resulted in 25 civilian
deaths and hundreds of injuries,” it says.
On Article
370, it says: “In August, the central government revoked the semi-autonomous
status of the Muslim-majority state of Jammu and Kashmir and split it into two
union territories: Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh… The revocation sparked
protests, criticism from Muslim leaders, and challenges filed in the Supreme
Court from Opposition politicians, human rights activists, and others. The
government sent thousands of additional security forces to the region, shut
down many Internet and phone lines, and had not restored full service by year’s
end.
The government also closed most mosques in the area until mid-December.
Seventeen civilians and three security personnel were killed during the
protests.”
“Issues of religiously inspired mob violence,
lynching and communal violence were sometimes denied or ignored by lawmakers,
according to a number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and media
outlets. There were reports by NGOs that the government sometimes failed to act
to prevent or stop mob attacks on religious minorities, marginalised communities
and critics of the government,” it says.
“Mob attacks
by violent Hindu groups against minority communities, including Muslims,
continued throughout the year amid rumors that victims had traded or killed
cows for beef. Authorities often failed to prosecute perpetrators of such ‘cow
vigilantism’, which included killings, mob violence, and intimidation.
According to some NGOs, authorities often protected perpetrators from
prosecution and filed charges against victims,” says the report.
The report
mentions the Supreme Court’s decision on the Babri Masjid case too. “Leading
national Muslim organisations and some Muslim litigants petitioned the court to
review the decision and permit the mosque, which was destroyed by members of
Hindu nationalist organisations in 1992, to be rebuilt on its original site. In
December, the Supreme Court dismissed these petitions and maintained its
ruling,” it said.
While the US
embassies are learnt to prepare the initial drafts of country-specific
chapters, the Office of International Religious Freedom, based in Washington,
collaborates in collecting and analysing additional information for the report.
Earlier, in a
letter dated June 1, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said the government
had denied visas to teams of the United States Commission on International
Religious Freedom (USCIRF), a non-governmental advisory body to the US
Congress, after its denouncement of the state of religious freedom in India.Jaishankar
said this in a letter to BJP MP Nishikant Dubey, who had raised the
observations made by the USCIRF, in Parliament in December 2019.
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