United States (US) Congresswoman Ilhan Omar has submitted a resolution in the House of Representatives on Tuesday in which she condemned the human rights abuses in India.
The resolution said that the House has expressed grave concern about the “worsening treatment” of religious minorities in India and called on US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to designate India as a “country of particular concern” under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998.
The resolution includes two reports i.e. a report by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) and a Report on International Religious Freedom 2021 by the US State Department which was published on June 2, 2022.
The resolution highlighted that the USCIRF had called for designating India as a country of particular concern for three consecutive years.
According to the resolution, the report mentioned cases of the Indian government’s “repression of religious minority leaders and voices for religious pluralism in India, including the Jesuit human rights defender Father Stan Swamy and the Muslim human rights advocate Khurram Parvez”.
According to the resolution, the report said: “Many of the incidents [on minorties] were violent, unprovoked, and/or encouraged or incited by government officials.”
The resolution said that in the International Religious Freedom 2021 report by State Department there are numerous examples of violence and threats of violence against religious minorities, particularly Muslims and Christians, in India throughout 2021.
It added that while presenting the report, Blinken himself said that “In India, the world’s largest democracy and home to a great diversity of faiths, we’ve seen rising attacks on people and places of worship.”
In April, Omar made a visit to Pakistan’s part of Kashmir. She said the issue should get more attention from the US which prompted an angry response from India. The congresswoman has always highlighted the Kashmir issue on several platforms.
