Unveiling an annual report on international religious freedom, Secretary of State Antony Blinken offered bleak assessments of several US adversaries including China, Iran and Myanmar. "In India, the world's largest democracy and home to a great diversity of faiths, we've seen rising attacks on people in places of worship," Blinken said. In the report, the State Department pointed to laws restricting religious conversions, quoted accounts of discrimination against Muslims and Christians, and said that "politicians made inflammatory public remarks or social media posts about religious minorities." India frequently bristles at foreign criticism of its record and has denounced the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, an autonomous government panel, which has repeatedly recommended that the State Department put India on a blacklist. The report also pointed to concerns in India's historic rival Pakistan, which is on the religious freedom blacklist.

Source: Manila Times June 03, 2022 16:15 UTC