Press Release: FIACONA Launched 2023 Annual Report

PRESS RELEASE

Washington DC. January 30, The Federation of Indian American Christian Organizations launched its 2023 Annual Report on India on January 30 at an event held at Washington Hilton, ahead of the IRF Summit.

The 2023 Report is unique in several aspects. For the first time, the Report calls for accountability from the government of India for its institutional failures to safeguard the lives and properties of Christians. The Report has recorded 1198 confirmed and verified incidents of violence against the Christian community across India. All these attacks were carried out by groups affiliated with or controlled by the Hindu nationalist party, the BJP, and its parent organization, the RSS.

Most of these attacks took place in states with some Anti-Conversion Laws. The attackers used perceived conversion, restricted by those laws, as a cover to attack the prayer meetings and churches. The police had joined the attackers in many instances.

The Report estimates around 100 million US Dollars as a net loss caused by the violence against Christians in these 1198 incidents. FIACONA calls on the government of India to form an independent committee to calculate the financial damage caused to each individual family affected.

FIACONA is asking the US Congress to pass legislation allowing the victims of religious violence and false police charges to sue government officials for criminal and civil negligence in the US courts.

FIACONA is asking the US administration to declare the funds sent by US-based charities to Hindu nationalist organizations in India as terror funding and impose sanctions on individuals and organizations at the forefront of the attacks on Christians in India.

A copy of the Report could be downloaded from Fiacona.org