Religious freedom: US State Department declines proposal to put India on ‘Red List’

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, November 17

The US State Department has turned down the recommendation by a US human rights to India, on its ‘Red List’ or ‘Countries of Particular Concern (CPC).

The report released by the US State Department on Wednesday was along expected lines.

The MEA has frequently slammed the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), the body which has made the recommendation.

 MEA spokespersons have said the USCIRF is biased and has a limited understanding of India and its Constitution. No US Secretary of State has acted on its recommendations as far as India is concerned.

Like the present US Secretary of State Antony Blinken this year, his predecessor Mike Pompeo had declined the USCIRF’s recommendation last year to list India as a CPC. 

Three of India’s neighbours – Pakistan, China and Myanmar are on the US State Department’s CPC list along with North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Nigeria. The USCIRF wanted the State Department to add India, Russia, Syria, and Vietnam to the list.

Successive US Ambassadors for Religious Freedom have drawn a sharp distinction between India and Pakistan, though both are accused of state violence on its citizens. Some of the violence in India was carried out by the government but a “lot of the actions are by the government in Pakistan’’ and half of the world’s people that are locked up for apostasy or blasphemy are in Pakistan, the US Ambassador for Religious Freedom Senator Sam Brownback had said last year when asked why Pakistan was on CPC and India wasn’t.