India Slams US Body’s Religious Freedom Report

New Delhi: India on Thursday rejected the latest report of the United States Comm-ission on International Religious Freedom (US-CIRF) that accused India of “severe violations” of religious freedom. India called the USCIRF a biased organisation with a political agenda that peddles a motivated narrative about India and advised the body to instead focus on addressing human rights violations in the US.New Delhi said, “The USCIRF is a biased organisation with a political agenda. It continues to misrepresent facts and peddles a motivated narrative about India. We reject this malicious report.”New Delhi added: “We would urge USCIRF to desist from such agenda-driven efforts. The USCIRF would also be well advised to utilise its time more productively on addressing human rights issues in the United States.”The USCIRF, which maintains that religious freedom is “collapsing” in India, released an India “country update” in its report, claiming that throughout this year, “individuals have been killed, beaten and lynched by vigilante groups, religious leaders have been arbitrarily arrested and homes and places of worship have been demolished”.The report said: “These events constitute particularly severe violations of religious freedom. It describes the use of misinformation and disinformation, including hate speech, by government officials to incite violent attacks against religious minorities and their places of worship.”The USCIRF report “described changes to and enforcement of India’s legal framework to target and disenfranchise religious minorities, including the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), Uniform Civil Code (UCC) and several state-level anti-conversion and cow slaughter laws.”The USCIRF also “recommended that the US department of state designate India as a “country of particular concern,” or engaging in systematic, ongoing and egregious violations of religious freedom”. India had earlier this year too slammed the body which is a US federal government entity established by the US Congress.



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