ICC Note:
A report recently released by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) claims that the Indian government is failing to protect Christians and other religious minorities. Attacks on Christians and their places of worship in India have dramatically increased in recent years, leaving many Indian Christians feeling abandoned and without rights. According to Open Doors USA, Christians in India were attacked 10 times a week on average in 2016. Will India take steps to curb this trend? 
02/16/2017 India (The Irish Catholic) – Religious tolerance is steadily deteriorating in India and violations of freedom of religion are rising, a new report has found.
Sponsored by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), ‘Constitutional and Legal Challenges Faced by Religious Minorities in India’ examined state laws across the nation and found that, while India’s constitution guarantees equal rights to religious minorities, laws enacted locally belie this and adversely affect all but the Hindu majority.
“Religious minority communities and Dalits, both have faced discrimination and persecution due to a combination of overly broad or ill-defined laws, an inefficient criminal justice system, and a lack of jurisprudential consistency,” the report states.
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Launching the Indian report, Fr Thomas J. Reese, chair of USCIRF said, “India faces serious challenges to both its pluralistic traditions and its religious minorities.” He called on the government there to revise “problematic” laws so as to bring them into line with both the constitution and international human rights.
The report comes in the wake of the revelation that anti-Christian attacks in India ran at 10 per week across 2016, making the nation the 15th worst country in which to be a Christian, according to the World Watch List compiled by the Open Doors watchdog.
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