U.S. monitoring rise in rights abuses in India, Blinken says
By Kanishka Singh
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken mentioned the USA was monitoring what he described as an increase in human rights abuses in India by some officers, in a uncommon direct rebuke by Washington of the Asian nation’s rights document.
“We recurrently interact with our Indian companions on these shared values (of human rights) and to that finish, we’re monitoring some latest regarding developments in India together with an increase in human rights abuses by some authorities, police and jail officers,” Blinken mentioned on Monday in a joint press briefing with U.S. Protection Secretary Lloyd Austin, Indian International Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and India’s Protection Minister Rajnath Singh.
Blinken didn’t elaborate. Singh and Jaishankar, who spoke after Blinken on the briefing, didn’t touch upon the human rights subject.
Blinken’s remarks got here days after U.S. Consultant Ilhan Omar questioned the alleged reluctance of the U.S. authorities to criticize Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s authorities on human rights.
“What does Modi must do to India’s Muslim inhabitants earlier than we’ll cease contemplating them a associate in peace?” Omar, who belongs to President Joe Biden’s Democratic Occasion, mentioned final week.
Modi’s critics say his Hindu nationalist ruling occasion has fostered spiritual polarization since coming to energy in 2014.
Since Modi got here to energy, right-wing Hindu teams have launched assaults on minorities claiming they’re attempting to forestall spiritual conversions. A number of Indian states have handed or are contemplating anti-conversion legal guidelines that problem the constitutionally protected proper to freedom of perception.
In 2019, the federal government handed a citizenship legislation that critics mentioned undermined India’s secular structure by excluding Muslim migrants from neighbouring international locations. The legislation was meant to grant Indian nationality to Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jains, Parsis and Sikhs who fled Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan earlier than 2015.
In the identical 12 months, quickly after his 2019 re-election win, Modi’s authorities revoked the particular standing of Kashmir in a bid to totally combine the Muslim-majority area with the remainder of the nation. To maintain a lid on protests, the administration detained many Kashmir political leaders and despatched many extra paramilitary police and troopers to the Himalayan area additionally claimed by Pakistan.
Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Occasion (BJP) lately banned sporting the hijab in lecture rooms in Karnataka state. Hardline Hindu teams later demanded such restrictions in additional Indian states.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Enhancing by Stephen Coates)
