{"id":25431,"date":"2020-05-15T17:30:38","date_gmt":"2020-05-15T12:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kashmir.today\/u-s-envoy-calls-out-harassment-of-minorities-in-india-over-covid-19\/"},"modified":"2020-05-15T17:30:38","modified_gmt":"2020-05-15T12:00:38","slug":"u-s-envoy-calls-out-harassment-of-minorities-in-india-over-covid-19-th","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/?p=25431","title":{"rendered":"U.S. envoy calls out harassment of minorities in India over COVID-19"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sam Brownback, however, praises Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s messages for unity.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

U.S. envoy for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback has called out COVID-19-related rhetoric and harassment in India \u2014 especially against Muslims \u2014 while also praising Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s messages for unity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn India, we\u2019ve seen reports of unfortunate COVID-related rhetoric and harassment, particularly against the Muslim community. This has been exacerbated by fake news reports and misinformation being shared via social media. There have also been instances of Muslims being attacked for allegedly spreading the coronavirus,\u201d Mr. Brownback told reporters on May 14 during a telephone briefing about COVID-19\u2019s impact on religious minorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNow, I\u2019ve been encouraged and we\u2019ve been encouraged by statements from senior Indian officials really urging a unity, and noting the Prime Minister stated even that COVID-19 does not see religion, language, or borders, which is certainly true,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Brownback\u2019s comments come weeks after the U.S. International Commission for Religious Freedom (USCIRF), an independent bi-partisan commission set up by the U.S. Congress, downgraded India\u2019s religious freedom rating to the lowest grade. Taking note of India\u2019s Citizenship Amendment Act and the National Register for Citizens, the USCIRD had recommended to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that India be classified as a \u201c country of particular concern.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asked if he believed the Indian leadership\u2019s language calling for unity was a reaction to the USCIRF designation, Mr. Brownback said, he did not know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t have anything particular that I\u2019m attributing the language to, I just noted that it\u2019s positive and that\u2019s good. And I don\u2019t want to always just point to everything\u2019s negative,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c\u2026the fact that the leadership would say this, great. USCIRF did put them out, as you noted, in that light and that got a lot of interest both here and in India, as you might guess. We will be putting our report out \u2014 Secretary [Pompeo] will put out the report from State Department fairly soon, and then we\u2019ll \u2014 that\u2019ll start the time clock on the Secretary\u2019s ultimate determinations on Countries of Particular Concern or watch-list countries, and the USCIRF recommendation will be noted as well. But I don\u2019t know why they did that, but I\u2019m glad they did,\u201d Mr. Brownback said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Significantly, the USCIRF also called for the release of those protesting the CAA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDuring #COVID19 crisis, there are reports #India govt is arresting Muslim activists protesting the #CAA, including Safoora Zargar who is pregnant,\u201d the Commission tweeted on May 14. \u201c At this time, #India should be releasing prisoners of conscience, not targeting those practising their democratic right to protest.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While there was no specific India reference in this context [the briefing discussed a number of countries and minorities], Mr. Brownback\u2019s remarks on May 14 began by saying a number of countries had released prisoners of conscience and that \u201csome people\u2019s lives were possibly saved by this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Afghanistan\u2019s minorities<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The envoy also said Sikhs in Afghanistan were seeking to emigrate to safer countries, including India, in response to a question on Sikhs in Afghanistan seeking asylum in the U.S. Following a May 25 attack on a gurdwara in Kabul, there have been calls \u2014 including from Indian American Congressman Ro Khanna \u2014 to grant Afghan Sikhs and Hindus asylum in the U.S.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sikh and Hindu groups in Afghanistan have also directly appealed to the Trump administration for asylum, the Wall Street Journal reported in April. The Trump administration has significantly cut back on the number of refugees the U.S. takes each year while also making it harder to claim asylum in America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c I\u2019ve visited \u2014 I\u2019ve met over the phone with a number of Sikh representatives about this particular case, and they continued to ask for \u2014 there continues to be an ask for \u2014 from some of their representatives to immigrate \u2014 U.S., Canada, even inquiries about India, Pakistan, about being able to go to any of these places to get out of Afghanistan,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With inputs from <\/em>The Hindu<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sam Brownback, however, praises Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s messages for unity. U.S. envoy for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback has called out COVID-19-related rhetoric and harassment in India \u2014 especially against Muslims \u2014 while also praising Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s messages for unity. \u201cIn India, we\u2019ve seen reports of unfortunate COVID-related rhetoric and harassment, particularly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22418,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25431\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}