US spares Delhi, slams China for rights violation

Tribune News Service

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New Delhi, May 13

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken skipped a mention of India while castigating several other countries mentioned as ‘Countries of Particular Concern (CPC)’ in the annual report of the US International Religious Freedom Commission (USIRFC).

The document was finalised last month and released on behalf of the US State Department on Thursday by Blinken, who utilised the occasion to announce sanctions against a Chinese official for curbing the freedom of religion.

Though USIRFC has recommended that India be put under the CPC and sanctions considered, the previous Trump administration had refused to do so. Blinken’s exclusion of India is a pointer that the Biden administration will also follow a similar course.

Though Pakistan is on the CPC list, it has been given a waiver from sanctions along with Nigeria and Saudi Arabia, both major oil producing nations because “there were important national interests of the US requiring the exercise of the waiver authority”.

Blinken did not mention India while he named several others such as Iran, which “continues to intimidate, harass, and arrest members of minority faith groups”.

In Myanmar, military coup leaders were responsible for ethnic cleansing and other atrocities against Rohingya.