UN rap for India as world body calls citizenship law ‘fundamentally discriminatory’

In what could be the biggest international humiliation in a long time, the United Nations Human Rights (UNHR) office has called India’s Citizenship Amendment Act “fundamentally discriminatory in nature” for leaving out Muslims and called for a review.

“We are concerned that India’s new Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019 is fundamentally discriminatory in nature,” UNHR spokesperson Jeremy Laurence said in Geneva.

The law does not extend the same protection to Muslim migrants as to six other religious minorities fleeing persecution, thereby undermining India’s commitment to equality before the law, enshrined in its Constitution, Laurence added.

“We understand the new law will be reviewed by the Supreme Court of India and hope it will consider carefully the compatibility of the law with India’s international human rights obligations,” he added.