for persecuting religious minorities, including Christians and Muslims. Washington’s move to revoke Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s visa has sparked a storm of protests in India, including from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of the Congress party.
Although Singh reportedly opposed Modi’s policies, he told parliament that the visa refusal "is not a matter of partisan" politics. Modi was scheduled to be the chief guest at the annual meeting of the Asian American Hotel Owners Association in Florida from March 24-26.
"The American government has been clearly informed that while we respect their sovereign right to grant or refuse visas to any person, we do not believe that it is appropriate to use allegations or anything less than due legal process to make a subjective judgment to question a constitutional authority in India," Prime Minister Singh said, according several media.
US "DETERMINED"
However President George W. Bush’s administration defended its actions. "We determined that an existing visa that Mr. [Narendra] Modi had, an existing tourist business visa, should be revoked under Section 212(A) (2) (g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. [It] says that any foreign government official who is responsible for or directly carried out at any time particularly severe violations of religious freedom should not be eligible for a visa" US State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli told reporters Friday, March 18.
The US also pointed to an Indian human rights body’s report, which said the Modi government was responsible for the killing of hundreds of members of the Muslim minority community in 2002. The visa revocation followed appeals in the US by 21 lawmakers on Capitol Hill as well as human rights groups to stop the visit, reported United Press International (UPI).
Modi has not been shy about proudly professing his anti-Christian, anti-Muslim, and anti-tribal stances, critics said. "He has repeatedly dehumanized the Muslim population of his state by accusing them of treachery; he has actively sought to interfere in the practice of the Christian faith in Gujarat, and he has caused wide-scale displacement of indigenous populations in the State in the face of stiff popular resistance," added US Congressman John Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee.
MORE THREATS
The Hindustan Times newspaper reported minorities in Gujarat state are threatened with questions like, "Would you like to live as Hindus or die like Christians?" Gujarat has long been seen as a safe-haven for Hindu militants, a BosNewsLife investigation shows.
A spate of anti-Christian violence in Dangs district in south-eastern Gujarat started December 25, and lasted till January 3, 1999, and included attacks against Christian places of worship, Christian schools run by missionaries, shops owned by Christians, and anyone who had a Christian identity.
Investigation reports suggested the former government under the leadership of Keshubhai Patel was responsible for the violence. The Federation of Indian American Christian Organizations of North America (FIACONA) said that it was "pleased at the US government’s decision," reported the Press Trust of India.
"TOTAL NEGLECT"
"Those who invited Modi to honor him in the US has done so in total neglect for the pain and suffering he has caused to hundreds of thousands of people in Gujarat and elsewhere," John Prabhudoss, the Chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee of FIACONA, was quoted as saying.
"It is a step in the right direction," Father Cedric Prakash of Prashant, a rights advocacy group in Gujarat, reportedly told the Indo Asian News Service. "We were asking for it for a long time [and] this is also for the first time the U.S. government is not indulging in double-talk," he was quoted as saying. It comes amid growing concern about violence against Christians, .who comprise just over 2 percent of India’s total 1.1 billion population, according church estimates.
In recent weeks at least one prominent Christian was killed and dozens of Bible students were injured. Last week Prime Minister Singh promised Christian leaders to help end the bloodshed. “We cannot tolerate violence against minority communities," Singh assured the delegation, according to transcripts obtained by the BosNewsLife New Delhi Bureau. (Based in New Delhi, Journalist Vishal Arora, 32, has covered persecution and other hard hitting news stories for a variety of international and national publications. He has traveled around the country on invitation by NGOs for seminars and talks on human rights, communalism, and religious persecution. Vishal Arora can be contacted at e-mail address vishalarora_in@hotmail.com or visit his website http://www40.brinkster.com/vishalarora/ )
