US report paints grim picture of human rights in India, IIOJK

Spread the love

The US Department of State in its report has painted a grim picture of human rights of Muslims in India and in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir.

The State Department in the chapter on India in the “2021 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices” released on Tuesday noted that Muslims in India are vulnerable to communal violence and discrimination.

The report maintained that since 2019, the IIOJK authorities have booked more than 2,300 persons in approximately 1,200 cases under draconian law Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. It pointed out that in 2021, Manipur and IIOJK saw an increase in the application of the Act. The report observed that draconian laws like the UAPA and Public Safety Act (PSA) were arbitrary. The UAPA and PSA give the authorities the power to detain persons for months without charge.

“Authorities in Jammu and Kashmir allowed detainees access to a lawyer during interrogation, but human rights groups documented that police routinely employed arbitrary detention and denied detainees access to lawyers and medical attention,” it added.

The report made mention about discrimination against minorities in India, instances of extrajudicial killings, degrading treatment or punishment by police and prison officials and arbitrary arrest and detention by the government authorities among other things.

“Despite government efforts to address abuses and corruption, a lack of accountability for official misconduct persisted at all levels of government, contributing to widespread impunity,” it said.

The report also flagged violation of human rights in arrests of activists in connection to the Bhima Koregaon case, cases against Kashmiri journalists under the black law, Public Safety Act, and detentions under the UAPA.

The report noted incidents where Muslim men were paraded in public and forced to chant Hindu religious slogan “Jai Shri Ram” in Uttar Pradesh’s Kanpur and police shootings during eviction of villagers belonging to the community in Assam’s Darrang district last year. “Muslim communities continued during the year with cases of physical abuse, discrimination, forcible displacement, and lynching for suspected cow smuggling,” it stated.

The report also mentioned that the laws against religious conversions have targeted Muslims. Bharatiya Janata Party-led state governments in Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh have enacted anti-conversion laws since last year to penalise “love jihad”. The pejorative term has been used by Hindutva outfits to push the conspiracy theory that Muslim men lure Hindu women into marrying them with the sole purpose of converting their brides to Islam.

“These ‘love jihad’ laws seek to make forced religious conversion by marriage a criminal offense and have mainly targeted Muslim men attempting to marry Hindu women,” the report stated. “Civil society groups criticized these laws as violating constitutional protections on freedom of religion, but some survey data suggested religious minority communities themselves sometimes expressed support for anti-conversion measures.”

The Citizenship Amendment Act and exclusion of Muslims from its provisions was also observed in the report. In 2019, Indian Parliament passed the Citizenship Amendment Act, which provides an expedited path to Indian citizenship for Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi, and Christian religious minorities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. “Following passage of the Act, widespread protests against its passage and the exclusion of Muslims from the statute occurred throughout the country, leading to arrests, targeted communications shutdowns, bans on assembly, and deaths in a few instances,” the report noted.

“According to human rights NGOs [non-government organisations], police used torture, mistreatment, and arbitrary detention to obtain forced or false confessions,” the report stated. “In some cases police reportedly held suspects without registering their arrests and denied detainees sufficient food and water.”

The report specifically mentioned the treatment meted out to 84-year-old Father Stan Swamy, who was arrested in the Bhima Koregaon case. The case pertains to caste violence in a village near Pune in 2018. Sixteen people were arrested on the charges of plotting the violence. Swamy died at a Mumbai hospital, while in police custody, on July 5, nearly nine months after he was arrested under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. He had suffered from multiple ailments including Parkinson’s disease, and had contracted the coronavirus infection at the Taloja prison in Navi Mumbai. The report noted that his bail petition submitted under medical grounds was rejected on multiple occasions by the court of India’s dreaded National Investigation Agency (NIA).

The report also mentioned that prosecutors had delayed starting the trial of activist Umar Khalid. He was arrested along with other activists, on September 14, 2020, after the clashes broke out between the supporters of the Citizenship Amendment Act and those opposing the law in North East Delhi between February 23 and February 26 of that year.

The report said that the Armed Forces Special Power Act violated the Article 21 of the Constitution which guarantees protection of life and personal liberty. The Act gives the Indian Army personnel sweeping powers to search, arrest, and to open fire.

The report pointed out that 50,291 crimes were reported against Dalits in 2020 – a 9.4% increase from 2019. “Crimes committed against Dalits reportedly often went unpunished, either because authorities failed to prosecute perpetrators or because victims did not report crimes due to fear of retaliation,” it said.

The report noted that there were several reports of discrimination against Dalits when it came to access to services, such as health care, education, access to justice, freedom of movement, access to institutions, and marriage. “Many Dalits were malnourished,” it said. “Most bonded laborers were Dalits, and those who asserted their rights were often victims of attacks, especially in rural areas. As agricultural laborers for higher-caste landowners, Dalits reportedly often worked without pay.”

Post Disclaimer

Disclaimer: US report paints grim picture of human rights in India, IIOJK - Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not necessarily reflect Latheefarook.com point-of-view

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *