The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has expressed outrage after finding it inexplicable that the US Department of State did not include India in its latest designations of “Countries of Particular Concern” (CPC) under the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA), turning a blind eye to the country of particularly severe religious freedom violations.
The USCIRF Chair, Nury Turkel, in a message posted on website of the organization said that there was no justification for the State Department’s failure to recognize India as egregious violator of religious freedom, as it clearly meets the legal standards for designation as CPC.
He said the USCIRF is tremendously disap-pointed that the Secretary of State did not implement our recommendations and recognize the severity of the religious freedom violations that both USCIRF and the State Department have documented in the country.
USCIRF Chair Nury Turkel further added that the State Department’s own reporting includes nu-merous examples of particularly severe religious freedom violations in India.
It is to mention here that despite UNCIRF rec-ommendations for the last three consecutive years, the State Department omitted India and out of its bias against Pakistan and China, designated them as CPCs along with eight other countries.—INP
