By Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The annual U.S. report on human rights practices launched on Monday listed “significant human rights issues” and abuses in India, together with reported concentrating on of spiritual minorities, dissidents and journalists, the U.S. State Department stated.

The findings come almost a yr after Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated the U.S. was monitoring what he described as an increase in human rights abuses in India by some authorities, police and jail officers, in a uncommon direct rebuke by Washington of the Asian nation’s rights file.

U.S. criticism of India is uncommon attributable to shut financial ties between the international locations and India’s growing significance for Washington to counter China within the area.

Significant human rights points in India have included credible experiences of the federal government or its brokers conducting extrajudicial killings; torture or merciless, inhuman or degrading remedy or punishment by police and jail officers; political prisoners or detainees; and unjustified arrests or prosecutions of journalists, the U.S. report added.

Advocacy teams have raised considerations over what they see as a deteriorating human rights scenario in India lately beneath the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Human Rights Watch has stated the Indian authorities’s insurance policies and actions goal Muslims whereas critics of Modi say his Hindu nationalist ruling social gathering has fostered spiritual polarization since coming to energy in 2014.

Critics level to a 2019 citizenship legislation that the United Nations human rights workplace described as “fundamentally discriminatory” by excluding Muslim migrants from neighboring international locations; anti-conversion laws that challenged the constitutionally protected proper to freedom of perception; and revoking Muslim-majority Kashmir’s particular standing in 2019.

The authorities dismisses the accusations by saying its insurance policies are aimed on the improvement of all communities.

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In 2022, authorities additionally demolished what they described as unlawful outlets and properties, a lot of them owned by Muslims, in components of India. Critics say the demolition drive was an try and intimidate India’s 200 million Muslims. The authorities defended the demolitions, saying they have been imposing the legislation.

“Human rights activists reported the government was allegedly targeting vocal critics from the Muslim community and using the bulldozers to destroy their homes and livelihoods” with out due course of, the U.S. report launched on Monday added.

Since Modi took workplace in 2014, India has slid from one hundred and fortieth in World Press Freedom Index, an annual rating by non-profit Reporters Without Borders, to one hundred and fiftieth place final yr, its lowest ever. India has additionally topped the checklist for the very best variety of web shutdowns on the earth for 5 years in a row, together with in 2022, web advocacy watchdog Access Now says.

“Civil society organizations expressed concern that the central government sometimes used UAPA (Unlawful Activities Prevention Act) to detain human rights activists and journalists,” the U.S. report stated.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Josie Kao)