US board needs India on spiritual freedom blacklist

The U.S. State Department ought to add India to a blacklist of nations that have did not uphold spiritual rights for his or her residents,

an American fee beneficial Tuesday.

The congressionally-created US Commission on International Religious Freedom made the advice in ,

its annual report, citing New Delhi’s “drastic turn downward” in spiritual freedoms in 2019,

pointing particularly to nonsecular minorities being “under increasing assault” with emphasis on India’s Muslim minority.

That resulted within the fee calling for the US regional ally to be positioned on an inventory of nations

“of particular concern” alongside China, Iran, Myanmar, Russia, and Saudi Arabia

It took the challenge with the nationwide

It took the challenge with the nationwide authorities led by President Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP)

choice to implement a controversial citizenship regulation that enables non-Muslim immigrants inside India and people from Afghanistan,

Bangladesh, and Pakistan to be positioned on a fast-track for citizenship.

Nationwide protests in opposition to the regulation confronted a violent push-back from

“police and government-aligned groups,” the report stated.

The fee counted almost 25 individuals who misplaced their lives in assaults on protesters and universities,

within the northeastern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh alone,

noting that stories point out regulation enforcement there particularly focused Muslims.

It additionally cited a sequence of actions, together with the citizenship regulation, enforcement of cow slaughter legal guidelines,

and a Supreme Court ruling in November that mixed to create.

US President Donald Trump didn’t provide any criticism of India’s citizenship regulation when he visited in February,

whilst inter-communal violence between Hindus and Muslims was raging.

Anurag Srivastava, the spokesman for India’s Ministry of External Affairs,