Saturday, August 22, 2009

Rights blacklisting a wake-up call for India

Church leaders have described a move by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom to blacklist India for its poor record of protecting religious minorities as a wakeup call for the country.

The USCIRF, an independent panel that provides recommendations to the US government, says India’s response to attacks on religious minorities in recent years has been inadequate, UCA News reports.

It released its latest report in New Delhi on Aug. 12 ahead of the first anniversary of violence against Christians in Orissa state in eastern India.

The international body also found fault with India for its failure to protect Muslims during sectarian violence in Gujarat in 2002.

The US government closely monitors a country the USCIRF puts on its watch list. The current list includes Afghanistan, Belarus, Cuba, Egypt, Indonesia, Laos, the Russian Federation, Somalia, Tajikistan, Turkey and Venezuela.

USCIRF chief Leonard Leo who released the report said it was “extremely disappointing that India, which has a multitude of religious minorities, has done so little to protect and bring justice to its religious minorities under siege.”

Leo also observed that India’s police and judiciary were seen as unwilling or unable to seek redress for the victims of violence. “More must be done to ensure future violence does not occur and that perpetrators are held accountable,” he said.

The Indian government described the USCIRF decision as “regrettable.”

Shashi Tharoor, a junior minister in the federal External Affairs department, told the media that India does not need any outside agency to educate it on how to protect its minorities.

However, Church leaders say the American group’s move is a wake up call for the Indian government.

Fr Babu Joseph, spokesperson of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India, says the USCIRF decision indicated the international community’s growing concern over India’s repeated failure to curb religious intolerance.

All India Christian Council secretary general John Dayal says the USCIRF decision is “a call” to the nation’s conscience to protect the weak and the injured.

“India would have been able to rebuff the US scrutiny more effectively if several thousand Christians were still not in (Orissa’s) refugee camps and if the killers were still not roaming scot-free, and if witnesses … were not being coerced,” Dayal added.

Jesuit Fr Cedric Prakash, who directs a center for human rights in Gujarat, said some state governments were directly or indirectly involved in anti-minority violence.
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