India turns down travel request of US panel on religious freedom

(REUTERS): India today (Thursday) has turned down a travel request for members of a US government panel seeking to review its religious freedom.

In this regard, the Indian Foreign Ministry has said that foreign agencies had no standing to assess the constitutional rights of citizens.

The visa snub to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) came as the US Congress released its own religious freedom report while a top Trump administration official said he was “very concerned” about the South Asian country’s situation.

Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar has said that the government firmly repudiated the surveys of the commission, which had little knowledge of the rights of Indian citizens. “It is biased and prejudiced,” he added.

“We have also denied visas to USCIRF teams that have sought to visit India in connection with issues related to religious freedom,” he told a lawmaker from Modi’s ruling group in a June 1 letter.

Since taking power in 2014, the Modi-led Indian government has faced criticism for attacks on Muslims and the panel has called for the world’s biggest democracy to be designated a “country of particular concern”, along with China, Iran, Russia, and Syria.

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