‘What will it take for the Biden administration to call out Modi’s regime for human rights violations?’: US lawmaker, Ilhan Omar

Image Courtesy:mid-day.com

US Congresswoman Ilhan Omar on April 6, 2022 asked President Joe Biden administration why it has been so reluctant to criticize Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government on its human rights record.

“How much does the Modi administration have to criminalise the act of being Muslim in India for us to say something? What will it take for us to outwardly criticise the actions that the Modi administration is taking against its Muslim minorities in India?” Omar asked Biden’s Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman.

Citing many instances of human injustices across the world, Omar compared Modi to the fascist Chilean General Augusto Pinochet whose regime witnessed many human rights violations.

She pushed saying, “When we remain silent and the situation gets out of control in the way that it did with the Rohingyas, we all of a sudden show interest in whatever genocide that’s taking place. But we have an opportunity now to lead and make sure that there is a deterrence in the actions that they are taking as our partners.”

In response, Sherman agreed with her in that the US administration must stand up ‘for every religion, every ethnicity, every race, every quality of diversity in this world.’

Omar concluded by saying that the US administration must “make a practice” of standing up against adversaries and allies alike.

In a later tweet, the fifth Congressional District Representative from Minnesota questioned the ruling regime’s treatment of the Muslim community and its global status as a US ally. “These are the questions the Administration needs to answer,” she said.

As India has seen, since 2014 but especially since December 2021, targeted hate speech that typically proceeds acts of social exclusion and outbreaks of violence, have peaked. After the hijab controversy, Karnataka has moved on to ban loudspeakers in Masjids. A political has been –Raj Thackeray—has echoed this in Maharashtra’s. Days ago, Gujarat saw such brazen hate speech aimed at verbal gender abuse of Muslim women. With Indian courts slow to act on such violations, even dismissing hate speeches uttered with a smile, the fact that elected officials from foreign countries are now weighing in their concerns about India’s social fabric, says a lot.

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