USA raised religious tolerance issues with India in private conversations

New Delhi: The US administration has raised issues associated to religious freedoms in India in private discussions with the federal government and can proceed to lift such issues, US ambassador-at-large for worldwide religious freedom Sam Brownback has stated whilst he pointed that the outgoing Secretary of State was not eager to designate India beneath any class not like China or Pakistan.

Brownback made the remarks throughout a briefing on Tuesday (USA time) on the designation by the US of China, Pakistan and eight different states as international locations of explicit concern for systematic violations of religious freedom. He was responding to a query relating to the US Commission for International Religious Freedom’s suggestion for India to be additionally designated in the same method.

“There were several recommendations made by the commission that [secretary of state Mike Pompeo] did not follow, and this was one of them. And we watch the situation in India very closely. The secretary has travelled there multiple times. These issues have been raised in private discussions at the government – high government level, and they will continue to get raised,” he stated.

Pompeo is “well aware of a lot of the communal violence that’s happening in India” and he’s additionally conscious of the Citizen (Amendment) Act and “issues associated with the Modi government”, Brownback stated.

“And as I said, he has raised it at the highest levels, but just decided at this point in time not to place them on a CPC [country of particular concern] or a special watch list,” he added.

There just isn’t response but from the Indian authorities to Brownback’s feedback. In the previous, India has dismissed criticism of such issues by the US administration and American our bodies as interference in the nation’s inside issues.

Brownback additionally sought to make a distinction between the scenario associated to religious freedoms in India and Pakistan, saying the US had extensively reviewed the scenario in each international locations.

“Pakistan – a lot of their actions are done by the government. In India, some of them are done by the government and the law that was passed, and much of it’s communal violence. And then, when that takes place, we try to determine whether or not has there been effective…police enforcement, judicial action after communal violence takes place,” he stated.

He identified that Pakistan accounts for half of the individuals in jail all over the world for apostasy or blasphemy, and issues akin to “forced brides” or ladies from Pakistan’s Christian and Hindu minorities being “marketed as concubines” in China. Besides, there’s additionally discrimination in opposition to Pakistan’s religious minorities that makes them extra susceptible, he stated.

“And that doesn’t mean that India doesn’t have problems. The statute…that was asked about earlier is a problem. The violence is a problem. We’ll continue to raise those issues, but those are some of the basis as to why Pakistan continues to be on the CPC list and India is not,” Brownback stated.