Among 125 Civil Society Organizations, Geneva Council for rights and liberties GCRL condemns the exclusion of 1.9 million people from the Assam (NRC), in India.
On 31 August 2019, after a long-drawn-out process, the final version of the Assam National Register of Citizens (NRC) was published. An act of mass deprivation of nationality, the NRC excludes 1,906,657 residents – approximately 6% of the population of Assam – thereby pushing them to the brink of statelessness.
On 5 September, the Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion and 124 other Civil Society Organizations including the GCRL condemn this discriminatory and arbitrary process, which disproportionately impacts Muslims of Bengali descent, and call for urgent action to protect everyone’s right to a nationality. Download the Joint Statement here (with a short note on the context of the NRC process) or read the Statement online blow.
This biggest mass-disenfranchisement of the 21st Century coincided with the halfway mark of UNHCR’s lifelong Campaign to end statelessness by 2024. moreover On October 7, UNHCR will organize a High-Level Segment on Statelessness in Geneva, to discuss possible solutions to ending statelessness as soon as possible. The signatory NGOs call on all participating countries to use the platform provided by the high-level segment to pressure the Indian government to end its arbitrary and discriminatory policy and to respect the rights of minorities to enjoy nationality.
https://files.institutesi.org/cso-joint-statement-on-assam-nrc.pdf
