{"id":2624,"date":"2016-03-03T21:39:00","date_gmt":"2016-03-03T21:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/globalpress.hinduismnow.org?p=2621&amp;preview_id=2621"},"modified":"2016-03-03T21:39:00","modified_gmt":"2016-03-03T21:39:00","slug":"india-withholds-visas-from-us-religious-freedom-monitors-religion-news-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/?p=2624","title":{"rendered":"India withholds visas from US religious freedom monitors &#8211; Religion News Service"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"post-177989\" style=\"text-align: justify\">(RNS) A U.S. religious freedom panel says it has been unable to obtain visas for members who planned to travel to India this week to assess conditions there.<\/p>\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<div class=\"p402_premium\">\n<p>In its 2015 annual report, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom included India on its list of Tier 2 countries &#8211; not the worst offenders but worthy of close monitoring due to religious freedom violations within their borders. USCIRF chairman Robert P. George said in a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.uscirf.gov\/news-room\/press-releases\/india-uscirf-not-issued-visas\">statement<\/a> that \u201ca pluralistic, non-sectarian, and democratic state\u201d such as\u00a0as India should have allowed the visit.<\/p>\n<p>He noted that USCIRF has sent delegations to some of \u201cthe worst offenders of religious freedom,\u201d such as China, Burma, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam. In the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.uscirf.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/India 2015.pdf\">report<\/a>, the commission said that while India had tried to protect religious minorities, incidents of \u201creligiously-motivated and communal violence reportedly have increased for three consecutive years.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Tier 2 designation was seen as unfair and part of what Jakob De Roover, a professor at Belgium\u2019s Ghent University, considers\u00a0an effort by USCIRF to promote a society based on American notions of religion.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt seeks to spread Protestant-Christian values across the world but does so under the guise of promoting and protecting human rights that are \u2018universally held sacred,\u2019\u201d\u00a0he <a href=\"http:\/\/www.firstpost.com\/world\/uncirf-hypocrisy-protestant-worldview-not-religious-freedom-2237900.html\">wrote<\/a> on firstpost.com, an Indian website, shortly after the release of last year\u2019s USCIRF report.<\/p>\n<p><em>(Adelle M. Banks is production editor and a national reporter for RNS)\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><br class=\"commented-out-html\" \/>\n<\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><em>This article was originally published on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.religionnews.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">RNS<\/a> . Read the original article <a href=\"http:\/\/www.religionnews.com\/2016\/03\/03\/religious-freedom-panel-blocked-from-india-visit\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(RNS) A U.S. religious freedom panel says it has been unable to obtain visas for members who planned to travel to India this week to assess conditions there. In its 2015 annual report, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom included India on its list of Tier 2 countries &#8211; not the worst offenders but [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[242,1326],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2624"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2624\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalpress-new.hinduismnow.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}