US Secretary of State Antony Blinken raised issues over the “increase in anti-conversion laws, hate speech, demolitions of homes and locations of praise for members of minority faith neighborhoods” in India.
He pointedout India in his speech on Wednesday after the US State Department launched the 2023 International Religious Freedom Report.
Blinken stated the report files cases where violence is happening at the social level, “sometimes with impunity, and it likewise contributes to the repression of spiritual neighborhoods”.
He pointedout India as an example, stating, “In India…Christian neighborhoods reported that regional cops helped mobs that interrupted praise services over allegations of conversion activities or stood by while mobs assaulted them and then jailed the victims on conversion charges.”
The 2023 Report on International Religious Freedom pointedout the Manipur ethnic violence and important views around Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s legal structure. This consistedof the Uniform Civil Code (UCC), laws restricting spiritual conversions for all faiths and 3 brand-new criminal laws.
Earlier in May, India turneddown a comparable report from the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF).
The report had implicated the judgment Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of “reinforcing inequitable nationalist policies” and described the organisation “biased” with “political program.”
The USCIRF had then declared that the Indian federalgovernment “failed to address” common violence disproportionately impacting Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Dalits, Jews, and Adivasis (indigenous individuals) in 2023.
“The US Commission on Internation