translated from Spanish: India criticizes US religious violence report before official visit

New Delhi.- India today criticized a US report on religious freedom in the Asian country, highlighting the growing attacks on minorities such as the Muslim, two days before the official visit of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. “We see no procedural legitimacy for a foreign entity or government to rule on the state of the constitutionally protected rights of our citizens,” Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman Raveesh Kumar said in a statement. 

According to the spokesman, the Asian nation is a “vibrant democracy” that protects the right to religious freedom and is “proud of its secular credentials.” 
The conviction comes after the publication last Friday of the 2018 US State Department’s Religious Freedom Report, which in its section on India highlights the increase in violent incidents against minorities in India. “Collective attacks by violent Hindu extremist groups on minority communities, especially Muslims, continued especially during the year amid rumors that victims were transporting or killing cows for their meat,” the paper says. In most regions of India, the sacrifice of this animal considered sacred by Hinduism is forbidden. 

Since the coming to power of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2014, incidents of lynchings have multiplied by radical groups, calling themselves cow protectors, patrolling with sticks and pistols and attacking them who think they kill these animals. Some senior officials of the “Hindu majority” BPJ party “have given incendiary speeches against minority communities,” the document includes. Next Tuesday is scheduled for an official two-day visit from Pompeo to India, the first since Narendra Modi’s re-election to the post of prime minister last April, with the trade issue as one of the priorities on his agenda. The United States is concerned about the lack of equality and market access for U.S. companies, as well as recent measures by the Indian government such as rising tariffs. 



Original source in Spanish