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\n\u200eGENEVA: Speakers at a side event held on the sidelines of the 61st Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, have demanded immediate access for UN Special Rapporteurs to Jammu and Kashmir, Delhi riot-affected areas, and Manipur, citing grave human and religious rights violations.
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\n\u200eThe seminar titled \u201cReligious Persecution in India” was organized by World Muslim Congress (WMC) in collaboration with the Kashmir Institute of International Relations (KIIR) and attended by distinguished human rights defenders, legal experts, and scholars.
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The speakers stated that the so-called world\u2019s largest democracy was actively engaged in the persecution of its religious minorities, noting that the increasing communal violence in India reflects a systematic pattern rather than isolated incidents.\n\u200e
\n\u200e”There is a shocking pattern of systematic persecution of religious minorities and the destruction of their right from Manipur to Kashmir”, they highlighted.
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\n\u200eThey highlighted harrowing incidents, such as the burning of 200 churches in Manipur with security forces nearby and the demolition of a Muslim family\u2019s shop in Haryana amid cheering neighbors, emphasizing that these acts constitute systematic destruction rather than collateral damage.
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\n\u200e Speakers also highlighted a widening gap between India\u2019s secular constitutional guarantees and a ground reality marked by bulldozers, mob violence, and laws that weaponize citizenship itself”
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\n\u200eAbout Legislative Architecture of Exclusion, the seminar detailed how the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) codified religion as a criterion for citizenship for the first time since independence\u2014explicitly excluding Muslims\u2014while the proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC) threatens statelessness for millions.
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\n\u200ePanelists characterized this mechanism as \u201cdemographic engineering\u201d rather than immigration policy.
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hey pointed out that the machinery of persecution was evident across several Indian states, where \u201canti-conversion\u201d laws criminalize interfaith marriages\u2014specifically targeting Muslim men under the accusation of \u201clove jihad”. Similarly they said that churches in Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka are routinely raided\n\u200e
\n\u200e They cited the documentation of over one hundred deaths from cow vigilantism since 2015, with virtually no convictions, as evidence of inverted justice, where \u201cvictims become the accused and perpetrators enjoy political protection
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\n\u200eSpecific attention was devoted to Jammu and Kashmir, where the unilateral revocation of Article 370 in August 2019 was followed by an eighteen-month internet blackout\u2014the longest in any democracy.
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\n\u200eThe speakers described actions such as banning Friday prayers, detaining religious leaders, and altering domicile laws to facilitate settler influx as \u201csystemic domination\u201d against the Muslim-majority population, amounting to the crime of apartheid: \u201cinhuman acts that enforce religious domination.\u201d
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\n\u200eThey also highlighted intersectional persecution affecting Christian communities in Manipur, Sikh communities facing surveillance in Punjab, and Dalit communities enduring temple entry prohibitions.
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\n\u200eTHe speakers demanded a review of bilateral agreements with India containing human rights clauses, utilizing conditionality as accountability rather than interference; protection for religious sites under imminent threat, specifically naming the Gyanvapi Mosque, Jama Masjid in Srinagar, and churches in Manipur as \u201cliving places of worship for living communities\u201d; and formal recognition of the pattern by the international community\u2014moving from individual incidents to data to evidence to action\u2014including acknowledgment of the apartheid framework in Kashmir as legal reality and structural persecution in mainland India.
\n\u200eThey advocated for a pluralistic Indian state where a Muslim can pray without fear, where a Christian can build a church without permit harassment, where a Kashmiri can call their land home without demographic replacement.
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\n\u200eThe event was moderated by Mr. Altaf Hussain Wani, Chairman of KIIR and Permanent Representative of WMC to Geneva.
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\n\u200ePanelists included Professor Alfred de Zayas, former UN Independent Expert on the Promotion of an Equitable International Order; Robert Fintina, writer and human rights defender from Canada; Ms. Saba Ghulam Nabi, Research Associate at CISS AJK; Mrs. Shamim Shawl, Representative of IMWU\/APHC and Ms. Marry Scully, human rights defender from the USA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"