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US Sanctions on India are coming as India makes it for the third time to 2022 USCIRF RECOMMENDATIONS
US Sanctions on India are coming
@gambit @F-22Raptor
Japan and South Korea are the only non Christian G20 countries which are not part of the countries that are part of the USCIRF ANNUAL REPORT 2022.
Six members of the G20 are part of the USCIRF ANNUAL REPORT 2022. That is the power of the US.
PART OF USCIRF ANNUAL REPORT 2022 COUNTRIES OF PARTICULAR CONCERN
Afghanistan
Burma
China
Eritrea
India
Iran
Nigeria
North Korea
Pakistan
Russia
Saudi Arabia
Syria
Tajikistan
Turkmenistan
Vietnam
PART OF USCIRF ANNUAL REPORT 2022 SPECIAL WATCH LIST COUNTRIES
Algeria
Azerbaijan
Central African Republic
Cuba
Egypt
Indonesia
Iraq
Kazakhstan
Malaysia
Nicaragua
Turkey
Uzbekistan
KEY FINDINGS
In 2021, religious freedom conditions in India significantly worsened.
During the year, the Indian government escalated its
promotion and enforcement of policies—including those promoting
a Hindu-nationalist agenda—that negatively affect Muslims,
Christians, Sikhs, Dalits, and other religious minorities. The government
continued to systemize its ideological vision of a Hindu
state at both the national and state levels through the use of both
existing and new laws and structural changes hostile to the country’s
religious minorities.
In 2021, the Indian government repressed critical voices—
especially religious minorities and those reporting on and
advocating for them—through harassment, investigation, detention,
and prosecution under laws such as the Unlawful Activities
Prevention Act (UAPA) and the Sedition Law. The UAPA and Sedition
Law have been invoked to create an increasing climate of
intimidation and fear in an effort to silence anyone speaking out
against the government. Father Stan Swamy, an 84-year-old Jesuit
priest and longtime human rights defender of Adivasis, Dalits,
and other marginalized communities, was arrested on dubious
UAPA charges in October 2020 and never tried. He died in custody
in July 2021 despite repeated concerns raised about his health.
The government arrested, filed complaints against, and launched
criminal investigations into journalists and human rights advocates
documenting religious persecution and violence, including Khurram
Parvez, a prominent Muslim human rights advocate who has
reported on abuses in Jammu and Kashmir. The government also
broadly targeted individuals documenting or sharing information
about violence against Muslims, Christians, and other religious
minorities; as one example, UAPA complaints were filed against
individuals for tweeting about attacks on mosques in Tripura. In
September, the United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human
Rights stated that the “[o]ngoing use of the [UAPA] throughout India
is worrying, with [the Muslim-majority state of] Jammu and Kashmir
having among the highest number of cases in the country.”
The government erected hurdles against the licensure and
receipt of international funding by religious and charitable nongovernmental
organizations (NGOs) under the Foreign Contribution
(Regulation) Act (FCRA), significantly impacting religious communities.
Numerous groups that document religious freedom violations
or aid marginalized religious communities have been forced to shut
down operations in the country given the restrictions under FCRA
that regulate access to and reporting on foreign funds and prohibit
their receipt for any activities purportedly “detrimental to the
national interest.” At the close of 2021, the licenses of nearly 6,000
organizations, including religious and humanitarian organizations
such as Missionaries of Charity and Oxfam India, were not renewed
under the FCRA (after an outcry, Missionaries of Charity’s license
was renewed in January 2022).
Government action, including the continued enforcement
of anti-conversion laws against non-Hindus, has created a culture
of impunity for nationwide campaigns of threats and violence by
mobs and vigilante groups, including against Muslims and Christians
accused of conversion activities. Anti-conversion laws have
increasingly focused on interfaith relationships. Existing laws
in approximately one-third of India’s 28 states limit or prohibit
religious conversion. Since 2018 (and continuing in 2021), multiple
states have introduced and enacted laws or revised existing
anti-conversion laws to target and/or criminalize interfaith marriages.
Public notice requirements for interfaith marriages have
at times facilitated violent reprisals against couples. Authorities
also assisted, if not encouraged, the targeting by nonstate actors
of interfaith couples, converts, their families, and their religious
communities in an effort to prevent interfaith marriages.
National, state, and local governments demonized and
attacked the conversion of Hindus to Christianity or Islam. In October
2021, Karnataka’s government ordered a survey of churches and
priests in the state and authorized police to conduct a door-to-door
inspection to find Hindus who have converted to Christianity. In
June 2021, Yogi Adityanath, chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, warned
that he would invoke the National Security Act, which allows for
the detention of anyone acting in any manner that threatens the
security of state, and that he would also deploy a team of over 500
officials to counter those (including, by his account, children) who
were carrying out conversion activities.
RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE U.S. GOVERNMENT
Designate India as a “country of particular
concern,” or CPC, for engaging in
and tolerating systematic, ongoing, and
egregious violations of religious freedom
, as defined by the International Religious
Freedom Act (IRFA);
• Impose targeted sanctions on individuals
and entities responsible for severe
violations of religious freedom by freezing
those individuals’ or entities’ assets
and/or barring their entry into the United
States; and
• Advance human rights of all religious communities
in India and promote religious
freedom, dignity, and interfaith dialogue
through bilateral and multilateral forums
and agreements, such as the ministerial
of the Quadrilateral.
The U.S. Congress should:
• Raise religious freedom issues in the
U.S.-India bilateral relationship and
highlight concerns through hearings,
briefings, letters, and congressional
delegations.
Background
India is the world’s most populous democracy, with an estimated
population exceeding 1.3 billion, 79.8 percent of whom are Hindu, 14.2
percent Muslim, 2.3 percent Christian, and 1.7 percent Sikh. Smaller
religious groups include Buddhists, Jains, Baha’is, Jews, Zoroastrians
(Parsis), and nonreligious persons. India’s constitution establishes
the nation as secular and a democratic republic, and Article 25 of the
constitution grants all individuals freedom of conscience, including
the right to practice, profess, and propagate religion.
The Indian government has been led since 2014 by the Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP). The BJP-led government, leaders at the national,
state, and local levels, and increasingly emboldened Hindu-nationalist
groups have advocated, instituted, and enforced sectarian policies
seeking to establish India as an overtly Hindu state, contrary to India’s
secular foundation and at grave danger to India’s religious minorities.
The Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) and
National Register of Citizens (NRC)
The religiously discriminatory Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA)—a
fast track to citizenship for non-Muslim migrants from Afghanistan,
Bangladesh, and Pakistan who are residing in India—passed in December
2019 and came into force in January 2020. In conjunction with a
proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC) requiring all residents to
provide documentation of citizenship, the CAA could subject Muslims,
in particular, to “statelessness, deportation or prolonged detention.”
In an ongoing state-level NRC effort in Assam, in 2019 approximately
1.9 million persons were omitted from Assam’s NRC list;
approximately 700,000 Muslim residents of Assam are at risk of being
stripped of citizenship. It is unclear how those excluded can be reinstated.
This process has left families in fear, in turmoil, and deeply
harmed, as documented in a 2021 report. In May, the government
of Assam asked for reverification of the Assam NRC list of citizens
in some districts, threatening to exclude more Muslims. The NRC
process in Assam has further aggravated communal tensions, and
in September, escalating tensions led to government security forces
violently evicting thousands of primarily Muslim villagers, resulting in
the brutal deaths of at least two.
Attacks on Religious Communities
In 2021, numerous attacks were made on religious minorities, particularly
Muslims and Christians, and their neighborhoods, businesses,
homes, and houses of worship. Many of these incidents were violent,
unprovoked, and/or encouraged or incited by government officials.
Both officials and nonstate actors have used social media platforms
and other forms of communication to intimidate and spread hatred
and disinformation against religious minority communities. The quick
spread of misinformation online has contributed to violent attacks. In
October, mobs attacked mosques and torched properties of Muslim
residents in Tripura, which borders Bangladesh. USCIRF received
documented reports of at least 50 incidents between June and
October 2021 targeting the Christian community in the state of Uttar
Pradesh alone.
Violent attacks have been perpetrated across the country
under the guise of protecting cows in line with India’s constitution
and laws in 20 states (and growing) criminalizing cow slaughter in
various forms. Vigilante mobs, often organized over social media,
have attacked religious minorities—including Muslims, Christians,
and Dalits—under suspicion of eating beef, slaughtering cows, or
transporting cattle for slaughter. Most such violent incidents are
reported in states where cattle slaughter is banned. For example,
in June 2021, three Muslim men were lynched on suspicion of cow
smuggling in Tripura, and a vigilante mob beat two men they accused
of smuggling cattle, resulting in one’s death and hospitalization of
the other in Madhya Pradesh.
Other Developments
Throughout the pandemic, patients reported different treatment by
religion and by caste in hospitals, hindering their access to healthcare.
In a survey conducted by Oxfam India during the alarming
surge in COVID cases within India in 2021, 33 percent of Muslims said
that they experienced religious discrimination in hospitals. Dalit and
Adivasi survey respondents also reported discrimination in hospitals
at significant rates.
In 2021, mass protests continued against farm laws enacted in
September 2020. Despite the widespread and diverse nature of the
protests, efforts—including by government officials—were still made
to discredit the protesters, especially Sikh protesters, as terrorists and
religiously motivated separatists. The government repealed the farm
laws in November 2021.
Key U.S. Policy
With shared interests in global security and economic trade, in 2021
the United States and India continued to maintain strong relations
through various bilateral and multilateral engagements. In January,
the United States welcomed India joining the UN Security Council
for a two-year term and supports a reformed council that includes
India as a permanent member. In July, Secretary of State Antony J.
Blinken traveled to India to meet with Prime Minister Narendra Modi
and External Affairs Minister Dr. S. Jaishankar to discuss a wide range
of issues, including continued cooperation on COVID-19 response
efforts, Indo-Pacific engagement, shared regional security interests,
shared democratic values, and the climate crisis. In September, Prime
Minster Modi attended the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, hosted
by President Joseph R. Biden, to discuss China’s growing global influence.
Also in September, Atul Keshap, the U.S. Chargé d’Affaires in
India, met with Mohan Bhagwat, the chief of Rastriya Swayamsevak
Sangh (RSS). In December, Prime Minister Modi participated in the
Biden administration’s Summit for Democracy.
US Sanctions on India are coming
@gambit @F-22Raptor
USCIRF's 2022 Annual Report Launch
Japan and South Korea are the only non Christian G20 countries which are not part of the countries that are part of the USCIRF ANNUAL REPORT 2022.
Six members of the G20 are part of the USCIRF ANNUAL REPORT 2022. That is the power of the US.
- Argentina
- Australia
- Brazil
- Canada
- China - PART OF USCIRF ANNUAL REPORT 2022 COUNTRIES OF PARTICULAR CONCERN
- France
- Germany
- India- PART OF USCIRF ANNUAL REPORT 2022 COUNTRIES OF PARTICULAR CONCERN
- Indonesia - PART OF USCIRF ANNUAL REPORT 2022 SPECIAL WATCH LIST COUNTRIES
- Italy
- Japan
- Republic of Korea
- Mexico
- Russia- PART OF USCIRF ANNUAL REPORT 2022 COUNTRIES OF PARTICULAR CONCERN
- Saudi Arabia- PART OF USCIRF ANNUAL REPORT 2022 COUNTRIES OF PARTICULAR CONCERN
- South Africa
- Turkey- PART OF USCIRF ANNUAL REPORT 2022 SPECIAL WATCH LIST COUNTRIES
- The United Kingdom
- The United States
- The European Union
- Spain
PART OF USCIRF ANNUAL REPORT 2022 COUNTRIES OF PARTICULAR CONCERN
Afghanistan
Burma
China
Eritrea
India
Iran
Nigeria
North Korea
Pakistan
Russia
Saudi Arabia
Syria
Tajikistan
Turkmenistan
Vietnam
PART OF USCIRF ANNUAL REPORT 2022 SPECIAL WATCH LIST COUNTRIES
Algeria
Azerbaijan
Central African Republic
Cuba
Egypt
Indonesia
Iraq
Kazakhstan
Malaysia
Nicaragua
Turkey
Uzbekistan
KEY FINDINGS
In 2021, religious freedom conditions in India significantly worsened.
During the year, the Indian government escalated its
promotion and enforcement of policies—including those promoting
a Hindu-nationalist agenda—that negatively affect Muslims,
Christians, Sikhs, Dalits, and other religious minorities. The government
continued to systemize its ideological vision of a Hindu
state at both the national and state levels through the use of both
existing and new laws and structural changes hostile to the country’s
religious minorities.
In 2021, the Indian government repressed critical voices—
especially religious minorities and those reporting on and
advocating for them—through harassment, investigation, detention,
and prosecution under laws such as the Unlawful Activities
Prevention Act (UAPA) and the Sedition Law. The UAPA and Sedition
Law have been invoked to create an increasing climate of
intimidation and fear in an effort to silence anyone speaking out
against the government. Father Stan Swamy, an 84-year-old Jesuit
priest and longtime human rights defender of Adivasis, Dalits,
and other marginalized communities, was arrested on dubious
UAPA charges in October 2020 and never tried. He died in custody
in July 2021 despite repeated concerns raised about his health.
The government arrested, filed complaints against, and launched
criminal investigations into journalists and human rights advocates
documenting religious persecution and violence, including Khurram
Parvez, a prominent Muslim human rights advocate who has
reported on abuses in Jammu and Kashmir. The government also
broadly targeted individuals documenting or sharing information
about violence against Muslims, Christians, and other religious
minorities; as one example, UAPA complaints were filed against
individuals for tweeting about attacks on mosques in Tripura. In
September, the United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human
Rights stated that the “[o]ngoing use of the [UAPA] throughout India
is worrying, with [the Muslim-majority state of] Jammu and Kashmir
having among the highest number of cases in the country.”
The government erected hurdles against the licensure and
receipt of international funding by religious and charitable nongovernmental
organizations (NGOs) under the Foreign Contribution
(Regulation) Act (FCRA), significantly impacting religious communities.
Numerous groups that document religious freedom violations
or aid marginalized religious communities have been forced to shut
down operations in the country given the restrictions under FCRA
that regulate access to and reporting on foreign funds and prohibit
their receipt for any activities purportedly “detrimental to the
national interest.” At the close of 2021, the licenses of nearly 6,000
organizations, including religious and humanitarian organizations
such as Missionaries of Charity and Oxfam India, were not renewed
under the FCRA (after an outcry, Missionaries of Charity’s license
was renewed in January 2022).
Government action, including the continued enforcement
of anti-conversion laws against non-Hindus, has created a culture
of impunity for nationwide campaigns of threats and violence by
mobs and vigilante groups, including against Muslims and Christians
accused of conversion activities. Anti-conversion laws have
increasingly focused on interfaith relationships. Existing laws
in approximately one-third of India’s 28 states limit or prohibit
religious conversion. Since 2018 (and continuing in 2021), multiple
states have introduced and enacted laws or revised existing
anti-conversion laws to target and/or criminalize interfaith marriages.
Public notice requirements for interfaith marriages have
at times facilitated violent reprisals against couples. Authorities
also assisted, if not encouraged, the targeting by nonstate actors
of interfaith couples, converts, their families, and their religious
communities in an effort to prevent interfaith marriages.
National, state, and local governments demonized and
attacked the conversion of Hindus to Christianity or Islam. In October
2021, Karnataka’s government ordered a survey of churches and
priests in the state and authorized police to conduct a door-to-door
inspection to find Hindus who have converted to Christianity. In
June 2021, Yogi Adityanath, chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, warned
that he would invoke the National Security Act, which allows for
the detention of anyone acting in any manner that threatens the
security of state, and that he would also deploy a team of over 500
officials to counter those (including, by his account, children) who
were carrying out conversion activities.
RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE U.S. GOVERNMENT
Designate India as a “country of particular
concern,” or CPC, for engaging in
and tolerating systematic, ongoing, and
egregious violations of religious freedom
, as defined by the International Religious
Freedom Act (IRFA);
• Impose targeted sanctions on individuals
and entities responsible for severe
violations of religious freedom by freezing
those individuals’ or entities’ assets
and/or barring their entry into the United
States; and
• Advance human rights of all religious communities
in India and promote religious
freedom, dignity, and interfaith dialogue
through bilateral and multilateral forums
and agreements, such as the ministerial
of the Quadrilateral.
The U.S. Congress should:
• Raise religious freedom issues in the
U.S.-India bilateral relationship and
highlight concerns through hearings,
briefings, letters, and congressional
delegations.
Background
India is the world’s most populous democracy, with an estimated
population exceeding 1.3 billion, 79.8 percent of whom are Hindu, 14.2
percent Muslim, 2.3 percent Christian, and 1.7 percent Sikh. Smaller
religious groups include Buddhists, Jains, Baha’is, Jews, Zoroastrians
(Parsis), and nonreligious persons. India’s constitution establishes
the nation as secular and a democratic republic, and Article 25 of the
constitution grants all individuals freedom of conscience, including
the right to practice, profess, and propagate religion.
The Indian government has been led since 2014 by the Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP). The BJP-led government, leaders at the national,
state, and local levels, and increasingly emboldened Hindu-nationalist
groups have advocated, instituted, and enforced sectarian policies
seeking to establish India as an overtly Hindu state, contrary to India’s
secular foundation and at grave danger to India’s religious minorities.
The Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) and
National Register of Citizens (NRC)
The religiously discriminatory Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA)—a
fast track to citizenship for non-Muslim migrants from Afghanistan,
Bangladesh, and Pakistan who are residing in India—passed in December
2019 and came into force in January 2020. In conjunction with a
proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC) requiring all residents to
provide documentation of citizenship, the CAA could subject Muslims,
in particular, to “statelessness, deportation or prolonged detention.”
In an ongoing state-level NRC effort in Assam, in 2019 approximately
1.9 million persons were omitted from Assam’s NRC list;
approximately 700,000 Muslim residents of Assam are at risk of being
stripped of citizenship. It is unclear how those excluded can be reinstated.
This process has left families in fear, in turmoil, and deeply
harmed, as documented in a 2021 report. In May, the government
of Assam asked for reverification of the Assam NRC list of citizens
in some districts, threatening to exclude more Muslims. The NRC
process in Assam has further aggravated communal tensions, and
in September, escalating tensions led to government security forces
violently evicting thousands of primarily Muslim villagers, resulting in
the brutal deaths of at least two.
Attacks on Religious Communities
In 2021, numerous attacks were made on religious minorities, particularly
Muslims and Christians, and their neighborhoods, businesses,
homes, and houses of worship. Many of these incidents were violent,
unprovoked, and/or encouraged or incited by government officials.
Both officials and nonstate actors have used social media platforms
and other forms of communication to intimidate and spread hatred
and disinformation against religious minority communities. The quick
spread of misinformation online has contributed to violent attacks. In
October, mobs attacked mosques and torched properties of Muslim
residents in Tripura, which borders Bangladesh. USCIRF received
documented reports of at least 50 incidents between June and
October 2021 targeting the Christian community in the state of Uttar
Pradesh alone.
Violent attacks have been perpetrated across the country
under the guise of protecting cows in line with India’s constitution
and laws in 20 states (and growing) criminalizing cow slaughter in
various forms. Vigilante mobs, often organized over social media,
have attacked religious minorities—including Muslims, Christians,
and Dalits—under suspicion of eating beef, slaughtering cows, or
transporting cattle for slaughter. Most such violent incidents are
reported in states where cattle slaughter is banned. For example,
in June 2021, three Muslim men were lynched on suspicion of cow
smuggling in Tripura, and a vigilante mob beat two men they accused
of smuggling cattle, resulting in one’s death and hospitalization of
the other in Madhya Pradesh.
Other Developments
Throughout the pandemic, patients reported different treatment by
religion and by caste in hospitals, hindering their access to healthcare.
In a survey conducted by Oxfam India during the alarming
surge in COVID cases within India in 2021, 33 percent of Muslims said
that they experienced religious discrimination in hospitals. Dalit and
Adivasi survey respondents also reported discrimination in hospitals
at significant rates.
In 2021, mass protests continued against farm laws enacted in
September 2020. Despite the widespread and diverse nature of the
protests, efforts—including by government officials—were still made
to discredit the protesters, especially Sikh protesters, as terrorists and
religiously motivated separatists. The government repealed the farm
laws in November 2021.
Key U.S. Policy
With shared interests in global security and economic trade, in 2021
the United States and India continued to maintain strong relations
through various bilateral and multilateral engagements. In January,
the United States welcomed India joining the UN Security Council
for a two-year term and supports a reformed council that includes
India as a permanent member. In July, Secretary of State Antony J.
Blinken traveled to India to meet with Prime Minister Narendra Modi
and External Affairs Minister Dr. S. Jaishankar to discuss a wide range
of issues, including continued cooperation on COVID-19 response
efforts, Indo-Pacific engagement, shared regional security interests,
shared democratic values, and the climate crisis. In September, Prime
Minster Modi attended the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, hosted
by President Joseph R. Biden, to discuss China’s growing global influence.
Also in September, Atul Keshap, the U.S. Chargé d’Affaires in
India, met with Mohan Bhagwat, the chief of Rastriya Swayamsevak
Sangh (RSS). In December, Prime Minister Modi participated in the
Biden administration’s Summit for Democracy.
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