The US State Department has not given its nod to include India in the list of Countries of Particular Concern (CPC)
Bengaluru: In a thumbs up to religious freedom in India, the US State Department has not given its nod to include India in the list of Countries of Particular Concern (CPC).
The list has ten nations, including China and Pakistan.
US Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, Samuel Brownback also elucidated on the move.
He said, “(In) Pakistan, a lot of their actions (violations of religious freedom) are done by the government. In India, some of them are done by the government and the law that was passed, and much of its communal violence. And then when that takes place, we try to determine whether or not there has been effective enforcement, judicial action after communal violence takes place”.
Other countries in the list are Myanmar, Eritrea, Iran, Nigeria, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.
Countries like Comoros, Cuba, Nicaragu and Russia have been placed on Special Watch List.
India, on its part, had rejected the claims made by the USCIRF.
"We reject the observations on India in the USCIRF Annual Report. Its biased and tendentious comments against India are not new. But on this occasion, its misrepresentation has reached new levels. It has not been able to carry its own Commissioners in its endeavour. We regard it as an organization of particular concern and will treat it accordingly," had said a statement by external affairs ministry.
In its report, the watchdog alleged that in 2019, the national government in India used its strengthened parliamentary majority to institute national-level policies violating religious freedom across the country, especially for Muslims. "Most notably, it enacted the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, which provides a fast track to Indian citizenship for non-Muslim migrants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan already residing in India," it alleged.
The Citizenship Amendment Act confers citizenship to those non-Muslims from the persecuted nations of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh who have been staying in Indian hitherto December 31, 2014.
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