Huge Surge in Violence Against Muslims; Calls for Economic Boycott Becomes Shriller
The Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC) strongly condemns the escalating violence against Muslims in India and the online propaganda by Hindu right-wing groups to push for their economic boycott.
Over the past few months, Muslims across India were beaten, lynched, harassed, assaulted, publicly humiliated, forced to chant “Jai Shri Ram” and “Vande Mataram”, accused of ‘mehendi jihad’, ‘bangle jihad’, ‘narcotics jihad’, ‘economic jihad’ and even ‘juice jihad’.
IAMC strongly denounces the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his party members for allowing the continuation of such attacks and in fact directly encouraging vicious hate and violence against the members of the minority community. The Biden administration and the international civil society groups must take immediate steps amid the rapidly deteriorating human rights and religious freedom situation in India before it ends up in a full-blown genocide.
North India Becomes Killing Field for India’s Christians
IAMC condemns the disturbing and dangerous trend of religiously motivated violence against Christians across various states in north India.
According to the Evangelical Fellowship of India’s Religious Liberty Commission (RLC), over the past two weeks, dozens of reports of physical beatings to illegal detention, as well as the disruption of worship service have been reported by the Christian community.
Journalists in Kashmir Face Extreme Harassment & Intimidation
IAMC condemns the spate of ongoing intimidationand harassment of journalists in Kashmir. Over the past week, at least five journalists working with local, national and international news organizations have been summoned by the police and different investigative agencies, according to The Kashmir Walla. Some of the journalists were even made to spend the night behind the bars.
Post the abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019, as many as 50 journalists have been arrested, raided and barred from traveling abroad.
