WASHINGTON: A US panel on religious freedom said on Tuesday the treatment of minorities in India is deteriorating and it recommended sanctions be imposed on India’s external spy agency over its alleged involvement in plots to assassinate Sikh separatists.
The US Commission on International Religious Freedom also said in its annual report that communist-ruled Vietnam had stepped up efforts to regulate and control religious affairs. It recommended Vietnam be designated a “country of particular concern.”
“In 2024, religious freedom conditions in India continued to deteriorate as attacks and discrimination against religious minorities continued to rise,” the commission said in the report released on Tuesday.
Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) “propagated hateful rhetoric and disinformation against Muslims and other religious minorities” during last year’s election campaign, it said.
India dismissed the report on Wednesday, calling it part of a pattern of “biased and politically motivated assessments.”
“The USCIRF’s persistent attempts to misrepresent isolated incidents and cast aspersions on India’s vibrant multicultural society reflect a deliberate agenda rather than a genuine concern for religious freedom,” Indian foreign ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in a statement.
Washington has sought to build close ties with both India and Vietnam given their shared concerns about China’s rising influence in Asia. Analysts say that as result Washington has overlooked human rights issues.
Since 2023, India’s alleged targeting of Sikh separatists in the US and Canada has emerged as a wrinkle in US-India ties, with Washington charging an ex-Indian intelligence officer, Vikash Yadav, in a foiled plot. India labels Sikh separatists as security threats and has denied involvement.
Modi, in April last year, referred to Muslims as “infiltrators” who have “more children.”
US State Department reports on human rights and religious freedom have noted minority abuses in recent years. New Delhi calls them “deeply biased.”
Modi, who has been prime minister since 2014, denies discrimination and says his government’s policies like electrification drives and subsidy schemes help all communities.
Rights advocates point to rising hate speech, a citizenship law the UN called “fundamentally discriminatory,” anti-conversion legislation, opens new tab that critics say challenges freedom of belief, the revoking, opens new tab of Muslim majority Kashmir’s special status and the demolition of properties owned by Muslims.
The panel recommended the US government designate India as a “country of particular concern” for religious freedom violations and impose targeted sanctions against Yadav and India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) spy service.
The commission is a bipartisan US government advisory body that monitors religious freedom abroad and makes policy recommendations.
But it is unlikely the US government will sanction RAW as the panel’s recommendations are not binding.
On Vietnam, the panel said a new decree issued this month allowed Vietnamese authorities to further demand financial records from religious organizations and suspend religious activities for what the report said were vaguely worded “serious violations.”
As of December, the US panel’s Freedom of Religion or Belief Victims List included over 80 prisoners whom the Vietnamese government punished for religious activities or religious freedom advocacy.
The Vietnamese embassy had no immediate comment.
US religious freedom panel urges sanctions against India’s external spy agency
https://arab.news/8ft8d
US religious freedom panel urges sanctions against India’s external spy agency
- Panel says India is seeing rising minority abuse, India dismisses report as biased, politically motivated
- Commission urges Vietnam to be designated as country of particular concern, panel’s recommendations not binding
France honors fallen soldiers in Afghanistan after Trump’s false claim about NATO troops
- In an interview with Fox Business Network in Davos, Switzerland, Trump on Thursday claimed that non-US NATO troops stayed “a little off the frontlines” in Afghanistan
PARIS: A senior French government official said Monday the memory of the French soldiers who died in Afghanistan should not be tarnished following US President Donald Trump’s false assertion that troops from non-US NATO countries avoided the front line during that war.
Alice Rufo, the minister delegate at the Defense Ministry, laid a wreath at a monument in downtown Paris dedicated to those who died for France in overseas operations. Speaking to reporters, Rufo said the ceremony had not been planned until the weekend, adding that it was crucial to show that “we do not accept that their memory be insulted.”
In October 2001, nearly a month after the Sept. 11 attacks, the US led an international coalition in Afghanistan to destroy Al-Qaeda, which had used the country as its base, and the group’s Taliban hosts.
Alongside the US were troops from dozens of countries, including from NATO, whose mutual-defense mandate had been triggered for the first time after the attacks on New York and Washington. In an interview with Fox Business Network in Davos, Switzerland, Trump on Thursday claimed that non-US NATO troops stayed “a little off the frontlines” in Afghanistan.
Ninety French soldiers died in the conflict.
“At such a moment, it is symbolically important to be there for their families, for their memory, and to remind everyone of the sacrifice they made on the front line,” Rufo said.
After his comments caused an outcry, Trump appeared to backpedal and heaped praise on the British soldiers who fought in Afghanistan. He had no words for other troops, though.
“I have seen the statements, in particular from veterans’ associations, their outrage, their anger, and their sadness,” Rufo said, adding that trans-Atlantic solidarity should prevail over polemics.
“You know, there is a brotherhood of arms between Americans, Britons, and French soldiers when we go into combat.”
