US, UN express concern about India’s religion-based citizenship law
The US government and the United Nations on Tuesday expressed concerns about a contentious religion-based citizenship law in India, with the UN calling the legislation “fundamentally discriminatory in nature.
Rights advocates have criticized the 2019 Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) – which the Indian government moved to implement on Monday. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International say it discriminates against Muslims.
Just weeks before Indian elections, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government has been pushing to implement the law, which makes it easier to get Indian citizenship for non-Muslim refugees from three Muslim-majority South Asian nations: Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Rights groups note the law leaves out Muslim minority groups like Shia Muslims from those countries while also excluding neighboring countries where Muslims are a minority, like the Rohingyas in Myanmar.
“As we said in 2019, we are concerned that India’s Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019 (CAA) is fundamentally discriminatory in nature and in breach of India’s international human rights obligations,” a spokesperson of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights told Reuters.