GENEVA – Geneva Council for Human Rights and Justice condemned on Monday, a controversial project to withdraw the citizenship of four million people in the northeastern state of Assam.
The Council said in a press release that it rejected the draft resolution, which targets the Muslim minority and represents racism that violates the international regulations and conventions.
The Council considered that the justifications of the Indian authorities that the draft resolution comes within a combating against illegal immigration from neighboring Bangladesh are unjustifiable and cannot justify this arbitrary step.
The project counts the residents who have been able to prove that they are there before 1973 when millions fled from the war that accompanied the independence of Bangladesh.
The Council said there were concerns that Hindu nationalists could exploit the census to be exposed to the Muslim minority in the state, which has been ruled by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party since 2016, led by Prime Minister Narandra Mudi.
It noted that the Director-General of Records had stated that more than 30 million people had been registered in the record and that only 4 million had been excluded by the authorities. Those who could not be identified could “object to a specific procedure” as of 30 August, December..
Hundreds of thousands of people fled Bangladesh to India during the war of independence from Pakistan, most of them stayed in Assam, which has long borders with Bangladesh..
Assam is the only state in India that has a citizen register. The country, which has a population of 33 million people, has lived for decades by resident and immigrant tribes.
Geneva Council For Human Rights and Justice confirmed that the Indian authorities’ project was similar to what Burma did when it stripped the Rohingya minority from their rights and the rights of protection in 1982. There is no real bodies for complaints and reviews and there will not be enough time for Objection..
Geneva Council For Human Rights and Justice called on the Hindi government to reverse its illegal decision and warned that only Muslims would have to experience a complex and unjust review without the right to legal advice, the end of which would be the absence of hope of their survival if they lost .
