EU Should Press India to End Rights Abuses

(Brussels) – The European Union should press the government of India to immediately act to end serious human rights violations in the country, five organizations said today, ahead of the EU-India human rights dialogue scheduled for August 20, 2024.

The Indian government should reverse its abusive and discriminatory laws and policies against Muslims, Christians, and other minorities; end restrictions on the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly; and free all human rights defenders, journalists, and others detained for exercising their basic human rights.

The groups are Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Front Line Defenders, World Organisation against Torture (OMCT), and CSW (Christian Solidarity Worldwide).

The annual EU-India human rights dialogue is an important, though insufficient, opportunity for both the EU and India to articulate their concerns on human rights, the organizations said. The EU should call on the Indian government to uphold the rights to freedom of speech, assembly, and religion, while the Indian government should raise concerns over increasing racist and xenophobic attacks in many parts of Europe, especially against migrants and minorities.

In June, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu majoritarian Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) returned to office for a third consecutive term. During the election campaign, Modi and several other BJP leaders repeatedly made statements inciting hostility and violence against marginalized groups, especially Muslims. Such inflammatory speeches, amid a decade of attacks and discrimination against minorities under the Modi administration, have normalized abuses against Muslims, Christians, and others.

In the past decade, the Modi administration has adopted laws and policies that systematically discriminate against religious minorities, including notably the Citizenship Amendment Act, which effectively excludes Muslim asylum seekers. Several BJP state governments have demolished Muslim homes, businesses, and places of worship without due process, as apparent collective punishment against the Muslim community for communal clashes or dissent. Some BJP officials have described these actions as “bulldozer justice.” Violence against religious minorities has also continued since the election, with at least 28 reported attacks across the country, resulting in the deaths of 12 Muslim men and a Christian woman.

The Indian government has escalated its crackdown on media, political opponents, and civil society groups, and is using allegations of financial irregularities and even its draconian anti-terrorism law to harass and prosecute human rights activists, journalists, students, government critics, peaceful protesters, and members of minority communities.

The Financial Action Task Force, of which the European Commission is a member, an intergovernmental organization that works to combat threats to the global financial system, has recommended that India put in place measures to prevent abusing anti-terror policies against nongovernmental groups.

The Indian government repeatedly uses its Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA), a law to regulate foreign funding for nongovernmental organizations to arbitrarily cancel licenses and shut down foreign funding. Over 20,600 nongovernmental organizations have lost their licensesin the past decade, many of them groups that have long promoted human rights and democracy.

In July, the Indian government enforced three new criminal laws – Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhinayam (BSA) – which replaced the Indian penal code, the Code of Criminal Procedure, and the Indian Evidence Act. The new laws expand police powers, raising concerns about them being used to infringe upon the rights to freedom of expression, association, peaceful assembly, and fair trial.

The new Code of Criminal Procedure or BNSS allows the police to seek 15-day custody of an accused at any time before the completion of the permitted 40 to 60-day remand period, instead of only the immediate two weeks after an arrest, increasing the risk of torture and other ill-treatment. The BJP government has claimed that the new penal code or BNS abolishes the colonial-era sedition clause, but critics have noted that the new provision punishing “acts endangering sovereignty, unity and integrity of India” is a rehash of the abusive sedition law.

The Indian government has also introduced laws and policies to allow for greater governmental control over online content, such as the Information Technology Rules, whichthreaten to weaken encryption and seriously undermine media freedoms, the right to privacy, and freedom of expression online. Indian authorities have a history of applying these laws to block online content critical of the government.

India shuts down the internet more than any other country. These shutdowns not only restrict fundamental freedoms but also disproportionately hurt communities living with poverty that depend on the internet to access the government’s social protection measures, denying them access to food and livelihoods.

India’s northeast Manipur state has been wracked by ethnic violence between the majority Meitei community, who are mostly Hindu, and the Kuki tribal groups, who are mostly Christian, since May 2023. More than 200 people have been killed, over 60,000 displaced, and hundreds of homes and churches destroyed. Indian authorities have failed to end the violence, while the Manipur state government continues to protect violent groups, such as Arambai Tenggol and Meitei Lippun, that support the dominant Meitei community.

The Indian government has not restored freedom of speech and association to Jammu and Kashmir five years after revoking the region’s special autonomous status, on August 5, 2019. There are growing restrictions on media in the region, and a number of journalists and human rights defenders have been arrested on spurious terrorism charges. The authorities have failed to take adequate measures to protect minority Hindus from attacks by militants.

The Indian government has also used the anti-terrorism law, the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, to arrest 16 prominent activists who promoted the rights of India’s severely marginalized Dalit and Adivasi [Indigenous] communities. While courts have granted bail to six people after several years in prison, nine activists are still detained without trial. Stan Swamy, a Jesuit priest who supported the rights of Adivasi communities, died in custody. The courts have repeatedly questioned the evidence against them. According to reports by the US-based forensic firm Arsenal Consulting, malware was used to surveil and plant evidence on the computers of at least three people accused in this case.

The Indian government faces increasing allegations of transnational repression – committing serious abuses beyond its borders. Several governments have accused Indian intelligence agencies of targeting terrorism suspects and separatist leaders for assassination in Canada, the United States, and Pakistan. India has also targeted its critics in the diaspora by canceling visas of overseas Indians and barring them from entering the country.

In January, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on EU-India relations that raised urgent human rights concerns, including “violence, increasing nationalistic rhetoric and divisive policies” against minorities. The European Parliament recommended that the EU-India Human Rights Dialogue should be upgraded to a biannual, headquarters-level dialogue preceded by a civil society dialogue “setting concrete commitments and benchmarks for progress.”

The EU should ensure public oversight and accountability for the EU’s India policy. The EU should follow up on the outcomes from this dialogue in both public communications and diplomatic efforts, and integrate the lessons learned from it into the EU’s strategy on human rights in the wider framework of the planned Strategic EU-India Agenda.

As a matter of priority, the EU should urge the Indian government to:

• Immediately release all arbitrarily detained human rights defenders, journalists, and other critics.
• Repeal or amend repressive laws used to target minorities and those used to silence dissent both online and offline.
• Implement the Financial Action Task Force’s recommendations and conduct an adequate and transparent risk-based assessment before subjecting nonprofit organizations to overbroad laws, such as the FCRA.
• Publicly condemn attacks on religious minorities and appropriately prosecute those responsible.
• Instruct state governments to stop arbitrary and collective punishment of minority communities, including through so-called “bulldozer justice.”
• Ensure security forces that commit human rights violations are held accountable.
• Grant access to all United Nations independent experts and international human rights monitoring mechanisms, including in Jammu and Kashmir and Manipur.