WASHINGTON, U.S.A., December 19, 2003: The U.S. State Department released its fifth annual report on international religious freedom on Thursday, December 18. The executive summary is at “source” above, and the complete report can be reached through related links. Six countries, Burma, China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea and Vietnam were named as countries that have “totalitarian and authoritarian attempts to control religious belief or practise.” Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are labelled as countries that practise state hostility toward minority religions. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, an independent federal agency which authored the report, says, “The State Department should designate Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan and Vietnam as countries of particular concern (CPCs).” That list was established in 1998 and has not changed since. The six CPCs are: Burma, China, Iran, Iraq, North Korea and Sudan. In the past, the commission had recommended India be added to this list of “countries of particular concern,” an unwarranted recommendation for a country with a history of thousands of years of religious tolerance and a democracy far removed from the repressive regimes of the six named CPCs.
In this report, India is put under the heading of “State Neglect of the Problem of Discrimination Against, or Persecution of, Minority or Nonapproved Religions.” This is a new classification for the report, which previously just had the officially designated CPCs and the recommended list of countries to add. Apparently the commission thought better of this approach and developed more categories:
The executive summary states: “India. The Government at times failed to act effectively to counter societal attacks against religious minorities and attempts by state and local governments to limit religious freedom. This failure resulted in part from the legal constraints inherent in the country’s federal structure, and in part from the law enforcement and justice systems, which at times are not effective. Two state-level anti-conversion laws were passed during the reporting period. The ineffective investigation and prosecution of attacks on religious minorities may be seen by some extremists as a signal that such violence may be committed with impunity. As of the close of the reporting period, no convictions had been obtained in connection with the 2002 attacks in Gujarat, in which as many as 2,000 Muslims were killed. Victims of the Gujarat riots blamed Hindu nationalists for sabotaging efforts to prosecute Hindus involved in the riots.”
The lengthy main report on India, which HPI has not examined completely, appears to be consistent with the so-called “secularist” view within India. For example, the dispute over history texts in Indian schools is stated in this manner. “Secularists warned the rewritten ‘history’ spreads misinformation to support Hindu nationalist political aims, including false claims that the origins of Hinduism are purely in India.” The characterizations of “false claims” in reference to the Aryan Invasion theory of India, now debunked, shows the report’s authors are not cognizant of the details of the historical issues, but likely taking their views from “secularist” sources in India, which are hostile toward Hindu religion.
All HPI readers are encouraged to read this report. At the same time, one should not overestimate the power of this commission, as each of their yearly reports contains a section complaining that the State Department regularly ignores their recommendations. India-born Preeta D. Bansal was appointed to the commission in 2003. She is a highly respected lawyer. Her biodata is here.
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