The United States has raised the issue of human rights with India in the past regularly and will do so in the future, a senior official has said ahead of the next month’s presidential trip to New Delhi to attend the G-20 Summit, PTI reported.
“We regularly raise human rights concerns with countries with which we engage, have done that — so in the past with India, and we’ll do so in the future,” State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters at his daily news conference.
Miller was responding to a question if President Joe Biden during his upcoming trip to India be asking India regarding the alleged Christian persecution in the country.
“We have made very clear that we oppose the persecution of Christians and we oppose the persecution of any religious group, no matter where it takes place in the world,” Miller said.
Earlier on March 21, the annual US report on human rights practices listed “significant human rights issues” and abuses in India, including reported targeting of religious minorities, dissidents and journalists.
The findings come nearly a year after Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US was monitoring what he described as a rise in human rights abuses in India by some government, police and prison officials, in a rare direct rebuke by Washington of the Asian nation’s rights record.
US criticism of India is rare due to close economic ties between the countries and India’s increasing importance for Washington to counter China in the region.
Significant human rights issues in India have included credible reports of the government or its agents conducting extrajudicial killings; torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment by police and prison officials; political prisoners or detainees; and unjustified arrests or prosecutions of journalists, the US report had said.
Advocacy groups have raised concerns over what they see as a deteriorating human rights situation in India in recent years under Bharatiya Janata Party of Narendra Modi.
Human Rights Watch has said the Indian government’s policies and actions target Muslims while critics of Modi say his party has fostered religious polarization since coming to power in 2014.
The US report also pointed out a 2019 citizenship law that the United Nations human rights office described as “fundamentally discriminatory” by excluding Muslim migrants from neighboring countries; anti-conversion legislation that challenged the constitutionally protected right to freedom of belief; and revoking Muslim-majority Kashmir’s special status in 2019.
