New York
\nMore than 20 UN experts signed a joint statement Thursday urging India to \u201cend attacks against minorities\u201d in the run-up to national elections expected to begin in April.
\n\u201cWe are alarmed by continuing reports of attacks on religious, racial and ethnic minorities, on women and girls\u2026 and on civil society, including human rights defenders and the media,\u201d they said.
\nThe situation was likely to get worse closer to the polls in the world\u2019s most populous country, home to 1.4 billion people, they added.
\nThe experts, who range from special rapporteurs to members of UN working groups, reported a range of issues.
\nThey included violence and hate crimes against minorities; incitement to discrimination and violence; targeted and arbitrary killings; and the misuse of official agencies against perceived political opponents.
\n\u201cWe call on India to implement its human rights obligations fully\u2026 by reversing the erosion of human rights and addressing recurring concerns raised by UN human rights mechanisms,\u201d the experts said.
\nThey also noted that there had been no country visits by UN experts since 2017, with 15 unanswered requests pending.
\n\u201cIn light of continuing reports of violence and attacks against religious, racial and ethnic minorities, and other grave human rights issues\u2026 we are compelled to express our grave concern, especially given the need for a conducive atmosphere for free and fair elections,\u201d they added.
\nSignatories included the special rapporteurs on minority issues; freedom of religion; freedom of expression; freedom of peaceful assembly; human rights defenders; violence against women; contemporary racism, and degrading treatment.
\nUN experts are mandated by the UN Human Rights Council but are independent figures and do not speak for the United Nations.
\nSince Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi took office in 2014, India has seen numerous outbreaks of violence between majority Hindus and its 200-million-strong Muslim minority.
\nCritics have accused India\u2019s government of using the justice system to target political rivals, with several opposition figures the subject of active criminal investigations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New York More than 20 UN experts signed a joint statement Thursday urging India to \u201cend attacks against minorities\u201d in the run-up to national elections expected to begin in April. \u201cWe are alarmed by continuing reports of attacks on religious, racial and ethnic minorities, on women and girls\u2026 and on civil society, including human rights …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":61686,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61679"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61695,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61679\/revisions\/61695"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}