India 2022 Events World Report 2023 Of Human Rights

Some Religious Minority in particular continue to be subjected to systematic stigmatization and discrimination. Radicals attacked designated groups violently more frequently. Institutional prejudice, notably in the legal system and in constitutional bodies like the National Human Rights Commission, was a result of the majoritarian ideology.

 

Authorities stepped up their efforts to intimidate members of civil society and free-lance journalists by putting people who exposed or denounced abuses in jail on the basis of politically motivated criminal charges, such as terrorism. The government intimidated rights organizations, political rivals, and others by enforcing foreign financing laws and making claims of financial wrongdoing.

 

In Jammu and Kashmir, Indian authorities tightened their limitations on free speech and nonviolent assembly.

 

In a judgment issued on an interim basis in May, the Supreme Court effectively put a stop to all applications of the colonial-era sedition legislation, which had been frequently used by the police to detain nonviolent government critics.

 

Humanitarian initiatives have received backing from the Indian government in Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, and Ukraine.

 

Violence has persisted for three years after the government divided Jammu and Kashmir into two federally ruled territories and withdrew its constitutional autonomy. As of October, 229 killings have been reported, including 28 civilians, 29 members of the security forces, and 172 suspected militants. Locals in Kashmir stated that some of the people killed in gunfights who were referred to as militants were actually civilians, but no independent investigation was made public.

 

In the Muslim-dominated Kashmir Valley, minority Hindu and Sikh groups came under attack. In Ma, there were seven targeted killings, four of which involved Pandits, Kashmiri Hindus. The other three were police officers who were Muslims. In response to Rahul Bhat's murder on May 12, Kashmiri Pandits working for the government in the Kashmir Valley went on an extended strike and demanded transfer. A group that speaks for the province's religious minorities, the Kashmiri Pandit Sangharsh Samiti, wrote to the chief justice of the area on June 1 to express worries for their safety. The administration of Jammu and Kashmir issued directives in September to withhold salaries from workers who were still on strike in the valley. A Kashmiri Pandit and two migrant laborers were slain by extremists in October.

 

The Kashmir Press Club, an independent media organization, was forcibly taken over in January by journalists allied with the government and police. Sajad Gul, a journalist for the digital news outlet The Kashmir Walla in Kashmir, was detained by police in January on suspicion of criminal conspiracy after he covered a demonstration. Following a shootout in which security forces allegedly killed four people they believed to be militants, authorities detained editor-in-chief Fahad Shah on sedition and terrorism charges. Following their respective release on bail in the cases brought against them, authorities rearrested Shah and Gul under the Public Safety Act, extending their arbitrary incarceration as of this writing.

 

At least 35 journalists in Kashmir have experienced police interrogation, raids, threats, physical abuse, and limitations on their freedom of movement, or false criminal charges since August 2019 as a result of their work.

 

The National Human Rights Commission recorded 147 deaths in police custody, 1,882 deaths in judicial custody, and 119 alleged extrajudicial executions in the first nine months of 2022. Torture and extrajudicial killing allegations persisted. The number of districts covered by the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) in various northeastern states was decreased by the Indian government in March. It still continued to be in place in Jammu and Kashmir and 43 of 90 districts in four northeastern states, giving security force member’s full protection from prosecution even for grave human rights crimes.

 

Targeting Bangladeshi livestock traders, unauthorized immigrants, and Indian citizens, the Border Security Force frequently employed excessive force near the border with Bangladesh.

 

In October, officials in Madhya Pradesh razed the homes of three men accused of throwing stones at a ceremonial dance while Gujarati police publicly whipped Muslim males accused of interfering with a Hindu celebration as an aggressive form of punishment. In response to communal violence in April, authorities in Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, and Delhi summarily destroyed property owned primarily by Muslims. They attempted to use the fact that the buildings were unlawful to excuse the demolitions, but it was clear that the purpose was to punish Muslims all at once. 

 

Muslims across the nation protested in large numbers in June in response to comments made by a BJP lawmaker disparaging the Prophet Mohammed. While authorities in Uttar Pradesh illegally razed the homes of Muslims suspected of being "major conspirators" behind the violence during protests, police in Jharkhand are accused of using excessive force on protesters, resulting in the deaths of two people.

 

In a letter to the Indian government in June, three UN special rapporteurs expressed grave concerns about the arbitrary home demolitions targeting Muslim communities and other low-income groups for alleged involvement in intercommunal violence. Authorities ‘reportedly failed to investigate these occurrences, including acts of intimidation and encouragement to violence that contributed to the eruption of the violence,' they claimed.

 

Political affiliates publicly rejoiced in August when the BJP administration approved the early release of 11 men who had been given life sentences for gang rape and murder committed during the 2002 anti-Muslim riots. After Bilkis Bano, a Muslim woman, testified in court, the males were found guilty. The Supreme Court received a petition from opposition politician Mahua Moitra protesting Bilkis Bano's early release, which is unusual in gang rape cases. Moitra stated, "This nation had better decide if Bilkis Bano is a woman or a Muslim."

 

In an effort to degrade and frighten them, pictures of more than 100 Muslim women, including journalists and activists, were posted on an app in January with the message that they were for sale. Laws prohibiting forced conversion to a different religion have been abused to target Christians, particularly those from Dalit and Adivasi tribes. According to a complaint made by a Hindu nationalist group, six Dalit Christian women were detained in Uttar Pradesh in July on suspicion of being pushed into conversion.

 

According to the National Crime Records Bureau, there were 50,900 offences against Dalit’s in 2021, up 1.2 percent from the year before. At 8,802 incidents, the number of crimes against Adivasi communities grew by 6.4%. Two Dalit teenage girls were murdered and raped in Uttar Pradesh in September, bringing attention once more to the fact that Dalit and Adivasi women and girls are more likely to experience sexual assault.

 

Through politically motivated legal actions, tax searches, accusations of financial irregularities, and the use of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA), the statute governing foreign funding for nonprofit organizations, authorities harassed and threatened activists and rights groups. The offices of Oxfam India, the Delhi-based think tank Centre for Policy Research, and the Bengaluru-based Independent and Public Spirited Media Foundation were raided by income tax officers in September on suspicion of FCRA violations. 

 

The offices of well-known human rights organization Centre for Promotion of Social Concerns in Tamil Nadu state were raided in January by India's main investigative agency, the Central Bureau of Investigation, on suspicion of fraud and financial irregularities in violation of the FCRA. Authorities detained noted human rights activist Teesta Setalvad, police officers R.B. Sreekumar and Sanjeev Bhatt, and others in June in what appears to be retaliation for their efforts to hold those responsible for the mob violence against Muslims in Gujarat state in 2002 accountable. Police were accused of "false and malicious criminal actions against innocent persons.

 

Mohammed Zubair, co-founder of the independent fact-checking website Alt News, was detained by Delhi police in June after they claimed he offended Hindu feelings in a 2018 Twitter tweet. Zubair's detention looked to be retaliation for outing a television news outlet that aired contentious statements made by a BJP legislator about the Prophet Mohammed, which drew condemnation from various Muslim governments.

 

Authorities detained journalists who were critical of the government on the basis of political accusations. Independent journalist Rupesh Kumar Singh, who covers the rights of Adivasi people, was detained by Jharkhand police in July on a number of accusations, including a violation of the harsh counterterrorism statute known as the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). When Singh and his wife's phone numbers appeared on a list of potential targets, they filed a case with the Supreme Court alleging that the government was using the Israeli spyware Pegasu to target journalists and activists.

 

Siddique Kappan, a journalist, was released on bond in September after spending two years in jail on bogus charges of terrorism, sedition, and other misdeeds. In detention on other accusations was Kappan, who was detained in October 2020 while on his way route to report on the gang rape and murder of a Dalit girl in Uttar Pradesh. Authorities have also barred activists and journalists from travelling abroad who are critical of the regime.

 

The report by the committee of specialists the Supreme Court appointed to look into the use of Pegasus spyware on Indian people was turned in August. It showed that 5 out of the 29 phones examined had malware on them, albeit it was impossible to tell whether it was Pegasus. The administration did not assist with the committee's probe, the Supreme Court remarked, but the report was not made public.

 

The pending Human Rights Impact Assessment on India, intended to objectively assess the company's involvement in disseminating hate speech and inciting violence on its services in India, was not published in July by Meta (previously) Facebook. This decision drew harsh condemnation from India's civil society. As part of its first annual human rights report, Meta just published a few excerpts from the report, abdicating its obligations in this area. According to Meta, it withheld publication due to safety issues.

 

31,677 occurrences of rape, or an average of 86 cases per day, were reported in 2021, indicating that violence against women and girls continued to occur at frightening rates. With two judges expressing different opinions, the Supreme Court was unable to rule in September on whether Muslim female students may wear the hijab, or headscarf, in educational institutions in the BJP-led state of Karnataka. A month after the state high court upheld the government ruling, the state government had issued a directive supporting discriminatory prohibitions on students wearing the hijab inside classrooms at many government-run educational institutions.

 

The Supreme Court issued a progressive decision on abortion rights in September, granting all women, regardless of marital status or gender identity, legal access to abortion. Access for rape survivors, especially those who were victims of marital rape, was also improved.

 

After many closures and reopening since the Covid-19 pandemic struck in March 2020, educational institutions all around the country started to hold regular classes again in February. Millions of children's educations were severely disrupted as a result of the school closings, with girls and children from underprivileged and marginalized communities suffering disproportionately because they lacked access to online education. This increased their risk of dropping out of school, losing their education, getting married as children, and working as children.

 

The Supreme Court expanded the definition of family to include same-sex couples, single parents, and other homes regarded to be "atypical" in an important decision in August that will advance the rights of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) communities and women.

 

Rohingya in India, Muslim refugees are subject to more stringent regulations, arbitrary incarceration, violent attacks frequently instigated by political figures, and a higher danger of being sent back home. Even though the Manipur State Human Rights Commission had issued a directive to halt the deportation in March, the Indian authorities nonetheless forcibly repatriated a Rohingya lady to Myanmar. The rights of Myanmarese refugees who were escaping recent hostilities between the country's military and armed groups were also not sufficiently protected by India.

 

After China and the United States, India is currently the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases worldwide. The updated Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) to the Paris Agreement, which binds the nation to achieve net-zero emissions by 2070, meet half of its energy needs with renewable sources by 2030, and cut the economy's emissions intensity by 45 percent by 2030, was approved by the federal cabinet in August.

 

Due to increasingly frequent and severe heat waves, sea level rise, drought, glacial melt, and changes in rainfall, climate change is anticipated to have a substantial influence on India. India had an abnormally early heat wave that started in March and saw its highest monthly temperature in more than a century. According to a research by the World Weather Attribution Network, climate change increased the likelihood of the March heat wave by 30 times.

 

Numerous high-level discussions between the European Union and its member states and the Indian government were held, but no public statements about the escalating abuses of power by the Indian government were made. Rare exceptions included a tweet from the EU's special envoy for human rights and a July statement from the German Foreign Office.

 

A bilateral Trade and Technology Council was established between the EU and India in April, and negotiations for a free trade deal were formally restarted in June. The EU and India convened their tenth, largely unsuccessful, local human rights discussion in July.

 

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken made reference to "concerning trends in India, including an increase in human rights abuses by some government, police, and prison officials" in a public statement in April. India's "religious freedom conditions dramatically worsened" in the previous year, according to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, which recommended that the State Department identify India as a "country of special concern."

 

Despite concerns from the House of Lords International Agreements Committee that the UK government's negotiating objectives did not provide enough information on the importance it would give to "human, environmental, and other rights and protections," the UK hurried to finalize a free trade agreement with India.

 

India does not condemn grave breaches of human rights in South Asia, especially those in Bangladesh and Myanmar. India voted against a UN Human Rights Council resolution on Syria in July, but it voted in favor of the resolution to extend the special rapporteur's authority to monitor and report on the human rights situation in Afghanistan in October.

 

India abstained from voting on resolutions at the UN pertaining to Russia's invasion of Ukraine during the year, including a resolution passed by the UN General Assembly in March denouncing Russia for its military actions and urging Moscow to evacuate all of its troops immediately.

 

India came under fire in the US and EU for refusing to condemn Russia's conduct or support the sanctions against Russian energy and defense purchases. The Indian government justified its choice to purchase Russian oil by arguing that it is necessary to buy oil where it is most affordable. When directly conversing with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Prime Minister Modi both in private and in public denounced the conflict.

 

In light of Sri Lanka's worst economic crisis in decades, India was the largest donor of help to the island nation, offering approximately US$4 billion in the form of credit lines for basic necessities including food, fuel, and medicines. India aided Sri Lanka in its efforts to secure assistance from the International Monetary Fund.

 

India provided wheat and medical supplies to Afghanistan in the midst of the continuous humanitarian crisis, which was made worse after the Taliban took control in August 2021.

 

The Indian High Commission single-handedly denounced the "vandalization of premises and symbols of the Hindu religion" following September riots between British, Hindus and Muslims in Leicester, United Kingdom.

 

To defuse tensions since the impasse in May 2020, India and China began to withdraw their troops from a disputed area near the Himalayan border in September.