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Notes

Expressing the sense of the Senate that the United States Government engage the Government of India to seek a swift end to the persecution of, and violence against, religious minorities and human rights defenders in India and a reversal of government policies that discriminate against Muslims and Christians on the basis of their respective faiths.

S. Res. 424 · 118th Congress · Oct 24, 2023 · Lineage

RESOLUTION

That the Senate—
(1)
recognizes the security challenges faced by the Government of India and the continuing threat of state-supported cross-border terrorism;
(2)
encourages the Government of India to amend the discriminatory laws and executive orders based on the love, jihad conspiracy theory, including the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, by treating Muslims the same as other religious groups, and the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act;
(3)
urges the Government of India—
(A)
to end the discriminatory and undemocratic NRC and return citizenship to the estimated 1,900,000 people who declared noncitizens in a wholly dubious manner;
(B)
to immediately release individuals unnecessarily detained in detention centers, protect the right to health of such individuals, and ensure access to healthcare and safe, sanitary conditions for anyone who remains detained;
(C)
to immediately release any unjustly detained human rights defenders, journalists, and other critics, many of whom have been held in custody for longer than 1 year without being charge with a crime;
(D)
to establish accountability for the brutal police violence against the anti-CAA protesters by prosecuting the policemen and others in the chain of command who are found to be complicit in such violence;
(E)
to repeal the anti-conversion and anti-blasphemy laws that are widely misused against religious minorities, especially Christians;
(F)
to repeal the hijab ban in Karnataka and allow thousands of Muslim girls and women to attend classes, as students or teachers, while wearing the hijab;
(G)
to end the demolition of homes, businesses, and places of worship belonging to Muslims and Christians; and
(H)
to allow unrestricted access to Jammu and Kashmir by independent human rights observers and international press; and
(4)
calls on the Government of India to repeal the colonial-era sedition law (section 124 of the Indian Penal Code) that is used to stifle dissent and debate and has been used against individuals who express their opposition to the CAA.