Advocates have lately been warning of the persecution of religious minorities in India. Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the chair of USCIRF, said earlier this year that the country was in a “cycle of downward spiral” of religious discrimination. “It is quite frightening,” Cooper said at the time.
The commission this month said Indian authorities “have used spyware and online harassment campaigns to target and intimidate journalists and activists abroad advocating on behalf of religious minorities.”
The U.S. Department of Justice, meanwhile, alleged last month that an “Indian government employee” participated in a “foiled plot” to assassinate the “leader of [a] Sikh separatist movement.” Sikhs are a religious minority in the northwestern state of Punjab in India.
USCIRF in its release further noted that the Indian government was accused of “involvement in the killing of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar” in Canada earlier this year.
Commissioner Stephen Schneck said in the release that the indications of religious persecution are “deeply troubling and represent a severe escalation of India’s efforts to silence religious minorities and human rights defenders both within its country and abroad.”
“We call on the Biden administration to acknowledge the Indian government’s perpetration of particularly severe religious freedom violations and designate it as a country of particular concern (CPC),” Schneck said.