WASHINGTON: The Indian government has arrested Muslim activists even during the Covid-19 crisis for exercising their “democratic right to protest,” the US Commission for International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) reported on Thursday.

In a series of tweets, the commission noted that most of those arrested were protesting against the country’s contentious Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).

The USCIRF recalled that its 2020 report recommended India be designated a Country of Particular Concern for “its systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom during 2019.” And “unfortunately, this negative trend has continued into 2020.”

USCIRF is a bipartisan commission whose reports are posted on the official site of the State Department and sent to the Secretary of State and Congress for further action. A designated nation can face economic sanctions.

Thursday’s first tweet noted that “during COVID19 crisis, there are reports the Indian government is arresting Muslim activists protesting the CAA”.

In another tweet, the commission reminded India that now was not the time to do so. “At this time, India should be releasing prisoners of conscience, not targeting those practicing their democratic right to protest.”

The USCIRF specifically mentioned Safoora Zargar, a pregnant Muslim activist, who was arrested in Delhi in February following mob attacks on Muslims protesters.

Zargar, 27, was arrested on April 10, when she was three months pregnant, and charged under India’s Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, 2019 (UAPA).

Zargar was a research fellow at the Jamia Millia University in Delhi and the media coordinator for the Jamia Coordination Committee (JCC), which organised weeks of protests against the CAA, enacted in December of last year.

After the 2002 riots in Gujarat, the commission had declared Narendra Modi, the then chief minister of the state, a violator of religious rights. Its recommendation led to a ban on Modi’s entry into the United States but was lifted when he was elected India’s prime minister. The last month’s recommendation, however, was the first since 2004 to seek India’s designation as a nation of particular concern.

The 2020 report noted that the CAA prevents refugees from Muslim majority countries from seeking Indian citizenship and could make millions of Muslims stateless if they failed to prove their citizenship.

The report noted that “during 2019, discriminatory policies, inflammatory rhetoric, and [RI1] tolerance for violence against minorities at the national, state, and local level increased the climate of fear among non-Hindu communities”.

In a note on the situation in occupied Jammu and Kashmir, the USCIRF noted that in August 2019, “the government stripped Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir’s autonomy and imposed security measures, including restricting freedom of movement and assembly, cutting Internet and phone access, and arresting Kashmiri leaders, including religious leaders”

“The restrictions on movement and assembly limited the ability to attend prayers and religious ceremonies. USCIRF also received several reports of mosques being closed, imams and Muslim leaders arrested and detained, and threats and violence by extremist groups,” the report added.

Published in Dawn, May 15th, 2020