Serving as a death blow to those peddling ‘minorities under attack’ narrative peddlers, the United States Department of State on December 7, released a list of “Countries of Particular Concern” (CPC) for violating religious freedom which featured the names of ten countries, including China and Pakistan. The State Department had however rejected the recommendation of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) to add India to the list.
Answering a question as to why Pakistan was included in the list but not India, Samuel Brownback, the US Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, said that religious freedom had been violated by the Pakistani government but it wasn’t the case with India.
“(In) Pakistan, a lot of their actions (violations of religious freedom) are done by the government. In India, some of them are done by the government and the law that was passed, and much of its communal violence. And then when that takes place, we try to determine whether or not there has been effective enforcement, judicial action after communal violence takes place”, said Brownback. He said that half of people who are jailed for blasphemy are in Pakistan’s jails.
In addition to China and Pakistan, Myanmar, Iran, Eritrea, Nigeria, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan also find place in the list. Russia, Cuba, the Comoros and the Netherlands are on the special watch list.
In 2019, the USCIRF in its report mentioned that India had experienced a ‘drastic turn downward’ and that the religious minorities in the country were under ‘increasing assault’. It stated that the Indian government allowed violence against minorities by engaging in and tolerating hate speech and inciting violence. It recommended India to be included in ‘country of particular concern’. India had rejected the USCIRF observations as biased and tendentious and called the USCIRF “an organisation of particular concern”.
USCIRF, a notorious body of Christian crusaders waging a religious war stealthily on native religions and cultures, has been basing its allegations of ‘minorities under attack’ based on reports prepared by questionable NGOs like Persecution Relief, a Christian Missionary organization, which along with a body called Federation of Indian American Christian Organizations of North America (FIACONA) has been lobbying with US Law Makers and members of USCIRF to list India as a ‘Country of Particular Concern’.