New Delhi, May 16 (KPN): A month before Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s visit, the US State Department has highlighted \u201ccontinued targeted attacks\u201d against minorities and noted that the US holocaust museum considers India as having \u201cpotential for mass killing\u201d.<\/p>\n
At an event in Washington, the 2022 International Religious Freedom Report, compiled by the State Department, was released by the US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken.<\/p>\n
There was no mention of India in Blinken\u2019s official speech. But at a background briefing for reporters, there were unusually strong and detailed remarks on the state of India\u2019s minorities.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we outline in today\u2019s report is a targeted \u2013 continued targeted attacks against religious communities, including Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, Hindu Dalits, and indigenous communities; dehumanizing rhetoric, including open calls for genocide against Muslims; lynching and other hate-fueled violence, attacks on houses of worship and home demolitions, and in some cases impunity and even clemency for those who\u2019ve engaged in attacks on religious minorities \u2013 we\u2019re also continuing to see, at the state level, some restrictions on religious attire,\u201d said the unnamed senior state department official, as per the transcript uploaded on the website.<\/p>\n
He was likely referring to the restrictions on wearing of hijab in educational institutions in Karnataka, which was legally challenged, but later upheld by the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n
The State Department official noted that there had been \u201csignificant attention\u201d from the international community in India, including from human rights groups.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe U.S. Holocaust Museum continues to draw considerable attention to the human rights situation in India and lists it as one of its top countries of concern and with \u2013 with regards to the potential for mass killings there\u201d.<\/p>\n
India is currently ranked at eighth among 162 countries for the highest risk of mass killing by the US holocaust museum\u2019s early warning project.<\/p>\n
Stating that the US has directly engaged with India on these concerns, he said, \u201cWe\u2019re continuing to encourage the government to condemn violence and hold accountable and protect all groups who engage in rhetoric that\u2019s dehumanizing towards religious minorities and all groups who engage in violence against religious communities and other communities in India\u201d.<\/p>\n
The senior diplomat reiterated that the US will \u201ccontinue to work very closely with our civil society colleagues on the ground, with courageous journalists that are working every day to document some of these abuses, and we\u2019ll continue speaking directly with our counterparts in India to address these issues\u201d.<\/p>\n
Indian Prime Minister Modi will be travelling to Washington next month for his first State visit, which will include a state dinner at the White House. He has already visited the US five times, but they have usually been classified as \u2018Working visits\u2019.<\/p>\n
While India was not mentioned in Blinken\u2019s speech this time, the South Asian country had been singled out by the secretary of state at the launch function of the annual report in June last year.<\/p>\n
While the State Department\u2019s own report criticises the situation in India, it has also refused to accept the recommendation of the bipartisan US Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) for putting the South Asian nation on the list of \u201ccountry of particular concern\u201d since 2020.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New Delhi, May 16 (KPN): A month before Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s visit, the US State Department has highlighted \u201ccontinued targeted attacks\u201d against minorities and noted that the US holocaust museum considers India as having \u201cpotential for mass killing\u201d. At an event in Washington, the 2022 International Religious Freedom Report, compiled by the State […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23482,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,40],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-23481","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-international","8":"category-latest-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailykashmirpost.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailykashmirpost.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailykashmirpost.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailykashmirpost.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailykashmirpost.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23481"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailykashmirpost.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23481\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23483,"href":"https:\/\/dailykashmirpost.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23481\/revisions\/23483"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailykashmirpost.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailykashmirpost.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailykashmirpost.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailykashmirpost.com\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}