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India violates minorities Religious Rights, says UN report - GEO.tv
NEW DELHI: UN report has slammed the pervasive climate of fear and intolerance perpetuated by religious mobs in many parts of India, and asked the government to provide effective protection to the minorities of whom Christians and Muslims in particular were vulnerable, often helpless and increasingly ghettoised.
Even though a comprehensive legal framework to protect freedom of religion or belief does exist, many of (the) interlocutors, especially from religious minorities, remain dissatisfied with its implementation, a report on India by Asma Jahangir, Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion and belief, said. A copy of the UN document was made available to media.
Organised groups claiming roots in religious ideologies have unleashed an all-pervasive fear of mob violence in many parts of the country, Jahangir said. Law enforcement machinery is often reluctant to take any action against individuals or groups that perpetrate violence in the name of religion or belief. This institutionalised impunity for those who exploit religion and impose their religious intolerance on others has made peaceful citizens, particularly the minorities, vulnerable and fearful.
She encouraged specific legislation to prevent communal violence but cautioned that it should take into account the concerns of religious minorities so as not to reinforce impunity of communalised police forces at the state level.
The laws and bills on religious conversion in several Indian states should be reconsidered since they raise serious human rights concerns, the report said. It focused on religious discrimination applied in the way affirmative action was offered to the lowest castes.
The eligibility for affirmative action benefits should be restored to those members of scheduled castes and scheduled tribes who have converted to another religion, the report recommended. Christian and Muslim Dalits are denied benefits of affirmative action given to Hindu Dalits.
Jahangir travelled in March last year to Amritsar, Delhi, Jammu, Srinagar, Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Thiruvananthapuram, Bhubaneswar and Lucknow where she met representatives of various religious or belief communities, including Bahais, Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Humanists, Jains, Muslims, Sikhs and Zoroastrians.
The Special Rapporteur was impressed by the vigor with which many members of civil society organisations and artists, particularly by those affiliated with the film industry, are challenging discrimination based on religion or belief and are proposing concrete means how to overcome religious intolerance, the report said.
Jahangir condemned the killing of Christians and the widespread destruction of their churches in Orissa. By the end of September 2008, more than 40 people had allegedly been killed in Orissa, over 4,000 Christian homes destroyed and around 50 churches demolished. Around 20,000 people were living in relief camps and more than 40,000 people hiding in forests and others places.
The Special Rapporteur was profoundly alarmed by the humanitarian situation in relief camps where access to food, safe drinking water, medical care, proper sanitary arrangements and adequate clothing were reportedly lacking.
Many Muslims were disturbed that terrorism was associated with their religion despite various public statements from Muslim leadership denouncing terrorism.
There have been complaints about a continuing bias among security forces against Muslims in Jammu and Kashmir who also seem to face difficulties with regard to the issuance of passports and security clearances for employment purposes, the report pointed out.
