At least three progressive lawmakers said they would not attend Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s joint congressional address to protest numerous alleged human rights violations in India.
Two Muslim Congresswomen — Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib — and Jamie Raskin will boycott the event.
“It’s shameful that Modi has been given a platform at our nation’s capital—his long history of human rights abuses, anti-democratic actions, targeting Muslims & religious minorities, and censoring journalists is unacceptable. I will be boycotting Modi’s joint address to Congress,” tweeted Rashida Tlaib.
While declaring her boycott of the address, Omar said she would hold a briefing with human rights groups to discuss Modi’s record of repression and violence.
Meanwhile, in a letter signed by more than 70 members of the US Senate and House of Representatives, legislators called on the Biden administration to address human rights concerns in his talks with Modi.
“A series of independent, credible reports reflect troubling signs in India toward the shrinking of political space, the rise of religious intolerance, the targeting of civil society organizations and journalists, and growing restrictions on press freedoms and internet access,” the letter reads.
The U.S. government’s Report on International Religious Freedom last year described how hate speech by officials in Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has contributed to anti-Muslim and anti-Christian violence and catalogued the party’s criminalization of religious conversion, the demolition of Muslim-owned properties, and arbitrary arrests and denial of bail for Muslim activists.
“The evidence of Modi’s escalating repression of India’s religious minorities is extensive,” said the Council on American-Islamic Relations on Tuesday.
Press freedom group Reporters Without Borders called India “one of the world’s most dangerous countries for the media” in its annual report this year.
