India Dismisses US Report on Alleged Human Rights Violations

India dismissed the Human Rights Report (HRR) from the US State Department on Thursday, which raised concerns about alleged human rights violations in the country. “The report is deeply prejudiced and demonstrates a poor understanding of India.

We place no value on it and urge you to disregard it,” said Randhir Jaiswal, spokesperson for the Ministry of External Affairs, when asked for his comment on the report.

The HRR, a compilation of human rights practices by country, highlighted “credible reports” of over a dozen different types of human rights abuses in India. These include extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrest or detention, torture to extract confessions, repeated imposition of Internet shutdowns and blocked telecommunications, surveillance of civil society activists and journalists, intimidation and Internet trolling of human rights defenders, punishment of family members for alleged offences by a relative, and “crimes involving violence or threats of violence targeting members of ethnic and caste minorities”, among others.