Resolution Urges India to Respect Human Rights of All Citizens
By Elaine Pasquini
On December 6, 2019, Rep Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) and Rep Steve Watkins (R-KS) introduced HR 745 urging India to end the restrictions on communications and mass detentions in Jammu and Kashmir as swiftly as possible and preserve religious freedom for all residents.
The resolution currently has 44 cosponsors, but has not been brought up for consideration in the House of Foreign Affairs Committee which it must pass before moving to the full Congress for a vote.
India, the birthplace of Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism and Jainism, is home to the world’s third-largest Muslim population. And three of India’s 29 states have a majority Christian population.
The country’s constitution mandates a secular state that upholds the rights of all citizens to the freedoms of religion, expression, speech and to equal treatment under the law.
In December, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government passed the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) which legalized the granting of citizenship based on religion, and specifically excluded Muslims from obtaining citizenship. India is also planning to implement a pan-India citizen verification process known as the National Register of Citizens (NRC) which combined with the CAA would give the Indian government legal grounds to declare Indian Muslims non-citizens.
US-based human rights organizations, including the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), urge the House of Representatives to immediately adopt Resolution HR 745 and follow the recommendations of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom and sanction the Indian government principal leadership for the discriminatory anti-Muslim citizenship law.
“Congress must also send a clear message to Indian Prime Minister Modi that we will not tolerate the state persecution of any minority in India, including Muslims,” said CAIR national executive director Nihad Awad. “We are getting close to a situation in which the Indian government will round up Indian Muslim citizens and Muslim immigrants and indefinitely detain them in state-run concentration camps – a human rights disaster in the making that must be avoided through immediate diplomacy and civil action.”
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