Source: wwrn.org
WASHINGTON, DC, USA, June 17, 2009: The Manmohan Singh government has derailed a proposed visit to India this week by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), a US Congress-related organization that monitors religious rights worldwide and gives independent policy recommendations to the US President and his administration.
A USCIRF team that was to leave for New Delhi on June 12 was not given visas in time with the obvious intent of blocking the trip, according to an associate at the commission, who said it was done. “So the inference is obvious…they don’t want us to visit,” the associate told TOI.
Sources in the government, without acknowledging that the visas were deliberately withheld, said it was not a proper time for such a visit. the USCIRF has in its annual reports criticized specific episodes involving violence against Christians, like the ones in Gujarat and in Orissa.
The official said the visa denial was not linked to the criticism of the proposed visit by the Hindu pontiff, Shankaracharya Jayendra Sarawati, who earlier this week described the USCIRF as an “intrusive mechanism of a foreign government which is interfering with the internal affairs of India,” and said the team must not be allowed to enter the country.
The Obama administration did not press for the visit, given that US Undersecretary of State William Burns was in New Delhi around the time of the proposed USCIRF visit, preparing ground for the visit to India by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sometime in July. Most “commissioners” and staff of the USCIRF are appointees of the previous Bush administration.